Gloss Perception in VR at Long Viewing Distances: Effects of Binocular Highlight Intensity Asymmetry

A prevailing assumption in Virtual Reality is that the perception of surface gloss attenuates with viewing distance due to the resolution limitations of head-mounted displays (HMDs). While prior work indicates that resolution loss can degrade cues such as highlight sharpness and binocular highlight consistency, the direct linkage between viewing distance and perceived gloss has not been systematically established in VR. This study systematically investigates this relationship, focusing on binocular highlight intensity asymmetry. Contrary to the common assumption, under physically based rendering, our results show no reliable decrease in perceived gloss with distance within the tested range, despite resolution limitations. Moreover, participants' gloss judgments appeared to be more strongly modulated by monocular cues (e.g., highlight luminance, contrast, and temporal information) than by the binocular asymmetry manipulation tested here under our tested conditions. Finally, we find that moderate departures from physically correct binocular highlight consistency did not, within a tested tolerance, undermine perceived realism. These findings provide a new basis for designing efficient rendering techniques that preserve gloss fidelity over distance in VR, suggesting that computational resources might be better allocated to preserving monocular cues.