Foveated rendering is a rendering technique which uses an

eye tracker Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze (where one is looking) or the motion of an eye relative to the head. An eye tracker is a device for measuring eye positions and eye movement. Eye trackers are used in research ...

integrated with a

virtual reality headset A virtual reality headset (or VR headset) is a head-mounted device that provides virtual reality for the wearer. VR headsets are widely used with VR video games but they are also used in other applications, including simulators and trainers. VR ...

to reduce the rendering workload by greatly reducing the image quality in the

peripheral vision Peripheral vision, or ''indirect vision'', is vision as it occurs outside the point of fixation, i.e. away from the center of gaze or, when viewed at large angles, in (or out of) the "corner of one's eye". The vast majority of the area in th ...

(outside of the zone gazed by the

fovea Fovea () (Latin for "pit"; plural foveae ) is a term in anatomy. It refers to a pit or depression in a structure. Human anatomy *Fovea centralis of the retina * Fovea buccalis or Dimple * Fovea of the femoral head * Trochlear fovea of the fr ...

). A less sophisticated variant called fixed foveated rendering doesn't utilise eye tracking and instead assumes a fixed focal point.

History

At Tech Crunch Disrupt SF 2014,

Fove FOVE is the first virtual reality headset to utilize built-in eye tracking technology. It was created by a Tokyo-based startup founded by Yuka Kojima (CEO) and Lochlainn Wilson (CTO). Announced in 2014, FOVE's technology uses infrared sensors ...

unveiled a headset featuring foveated rendering. This was followed by a successful kickstarter in May 2015. At

CES 2016 CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

, SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) demoed a new 250 Hz eye tracking system and a working foveated rendering solution. It resulted from a partnership with camera sensor manufacturer

Omnivision OmniVision Technologies Inc. is an American subsidiary of Chinese semiconductor device and mixed-signal integrated circuit design house Will Semiconductor. The company designs and develops digital imaging products for use in mobile phones, not ...

who provided the camera hardware for the new system. In July 2016,

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

demonstrated during SIGGRAPH a new method of foveated rendering claimed to be invisible to users. In February 2017, Qualcomm announced their Snapdragon 835 Virtual Reality Development Kit (VRDK) which includes foveated rendering support called Adreno Foveation. During CES 2019 on January 7

HTC HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, s=宏达国际电子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t) or High Tech Computer Corporation, (literally ''Hongda International Electron ...

announced an upcoming virtual reality headset called Vive Pro Eye featuring eye-tracking and support for foveated rendering. In December 2019,

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

Oculus Quest The Oculus Quest is a virtual reality (VR) headset developed by Oculus, a division of Meta, Inc., released on May 21, 2019. Similar to its predecessor, Oculus Go, it is a standalone device that can run games and software wirelessly under an ...

SDK gave developers access to dynamic fixed foveated rendering, allowing the variation in level of detail to be changed on the fly via an API. On January 4, 2022,

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professiona ...

announced that their follow-up to

PlayStation VR The PlayStation VR (PS VR, known by its code name Project Morpheus during development) is a virtual reality headset developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, which was released in October 2016. It is fully functional with the PlayStation 4 an ...

will include eye tracking and foveated rendering.

Use

According to chief scientist

Michael Abrash Michael Abrash is a programmer and technical writer specializing in code optimization and 80x86 assembly language. He wrote the 1990 book ''Zen of Assembly Language Volume 1: Knowledge'' and a monthly column in '' Dr. Dobb's Journal'' in the ea ...

Oculus Oculus (a term from Latin ''oculus'', meaning 'eye'), may refer to the following Architecture * Oculus (architecture), a circular opening in the centre of a dome or in a wall Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Oculus'' (film), a 2013 American ...

, utilising foveated rendering in conjunction with sparse rendering and deep learning image reconstruction has the potential to require an order of magnitude fewer pixels to be rendered in comparison to a full image. Later, these results have been demonstrated and published.

References

External links

Microsoft white paper on foveated rendering
{{Mixed reality Virtual reality Computer vision

History

Use

See also

References

External links