Creating Correct Blur and its Effect on Accommodation

Cholewiak, SA; Love, GD; Banks, MS

Abstract

Blur occurs naturally when the eye is focused at one distance and an object is presented at another distance. Computer-graphics engineers and vision scientists often wish to create display images that reproduce such depthdependent blur, but their methods are incorrect for that purpose. They take into account the scene geometry, pupil size, and focal distances, but do not properly take into account the optical aberrations of the human eye. We developed a method that, by incorporating the viewer’s optics, yields displayed images that produce retinal images close to the ones that occur in natural viewing. We concentrated on the effects of defocus, chromatic aberration, astigmatism, and spherical aberration and evaluated their effectiveness by conducting experiments in which we attempted to drive the eye’s focusing response (accommodation) through the rendering of these aberrations. We found that accommodation is not driven at all by conventional rendering methods, but that it is driven surprisingly quickly and accurately by our method with defocus and chromatic aberration incorporated. We found some effect of astigmatism but none of spherical aberration. We discuss how the rendering approach can be used in vision science experiments and in the development of ophthalmic/optometric devices and augmented- and virtual-reality displays.

Citation

Cholewiak, S., Love, G., & Banks, M. (2018). Creating Correct Blur and its Effect on Accommodation. Journal of Vision, 18(9), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1167/18.9.1

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 14, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Sep 4, 2018
• Publication Date: Sep 4, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jul 16, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 11, 2018
• Journal: Journal of Vision
• Electronic ISSN: 1534-7362
• Publisher: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 9
• Pages: 1-29
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1167/18.9.1
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1354068