[Sharlin]

The fovea, the area of high-resolution vision in the middle of the field of view, is surprisingly small, just a few degrees across. The resolution falls rapidly outside the fovea [1]. A lot of the detail we perceive in the periphery is actually the brain filling in blanks based on "cached" data.

The resolution drop could in principle be taken advantage of in computer graphics, especially in VR applications with robust enough eye tracking [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fovea_centralis

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveated_imaging

[Cybiote]

Interesting idea about the eye-tracking for VR: offloading computation to the brain!

I'll make a correction that while minor, makes a world of difference: filling in the blank is more accurately understood as the brain making bayesian inferences or predictions or best guesses about what's missing or uncertain. The top down interaction occurring there is much more interesting than the term caching implies.

[andrepd]

>filling in the blank is more accurately understood as the brain making bayesian inferences or predictions or best guesses about what's missing or uncertain.

Do you have any sources, or further reading, on that?

[socmag]

Hah, why not.. We already created perceptually correct audio CODECs. Doing the same for real-time image generation seems like a worthy research area for sure!

[dahart]

True. And it's being done already! Here are just a few papers by my graduate school cohort.

Pdiff ("perceptual diff") uses perceptual metrics including visual acuity to diff two images. This is frequently used for image based regression testing of websites. It's really handy when you need to diff images that don't come out pixel identical every time, like images made with different browsers, or images that involve some randomness.

http://pdiff.sourceforge.net

https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...

http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/pubs/1999/RPG99.html

http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/pubs/2000/PTYG00.html

https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...

[socmag]

The GI paper double thumbs up.

[socmag]

Great! Very cool work.

[kakarot]

I always love getting a chance to promote these guys. http://www.getfove.com/

They get it. Eye tracking, foveated rendering, all that.

[icelancer]

Any idea when they might launch if ever? Been waiting on that. I built my own gaze tracking system but would like a production-ready model.

[kakarot]

What was your setup?

They send out monthly newsletters and things are coming along, just at a slower pace than everyone was hoping for. But no official release date yet.

[icelancer]

Pair of Chinese endoscope cameras and a LX1000 webcam + free open source software for gaze tracking. Worked OK.