Perceptual Evaluation of Steered Retinal Projection

Steered retinal projection (SRP) is an emerging display technology that combines retinal projection and pupil steering to achieve exceptional light efficiency and a consistent viewing experience. Retinal projection enables most photons from a display projector to reach the retina, and pupil steering dynamically aligns the narrow viewing window of the retinal projection with the eye. While SRP holds considerable promise, its development has been stagnant due to a lack of understanding how human vision reacts to the dynamic steering movement of the viewing window. To delve into these areas, this study introduces the first SRP system testbed specifically designed for perceptual studies on the viewing experience of pupil steering. The testbed replicates the SRP viewing experience and offers the flexibility in adjusting several parameters including steering resolution, accuracy, and latency. We conducted two perceptual studies utilizing the testbed. The first study investigates the impact of saccadic suppression, a phenomenon that reduces visual sensitivity during rapid eye movements, on the SRP viewing experience. The second study explores the trade space between eye-tracking and pupil steering performance, providing insights into the optimal balance between these factors. Additionally, we introduce a numerical model to predict the detection probability for SRP artifacts considering the temporal characteristics of global luminance and the human vision system. This model enables a more comprehensive interpretation of user study and provides preliminary hardware requirements for SRP systems. The findings from this study offer invaluable research directions that may help determine component-level development milestones for SRP development, paving the way for the practical implementation of this promising technology.