Gaze-Aware Image Compression for Low-Latency Head-Mounted Displays
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing image display technologies using head-mounted displays suffer from delays in data transmission, leading to degraded realistic sensation and potential motion sickness due to the delay between user head movement and image display, especially with high image quality requirements.
Innovation Solution
An image data transfer apparatus and method that utilizes a gaze point acquisition section to estimate attention degrees in unit regions of a frame, varying compression coding rates based on these degrees, and transferring compression-coded data via streaming to reduce delay.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If image data is transferred via communication between client terminal and server, then image quality can be improved, but delay time period increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the image into multiple unit regions (e.g., left eye region, right eye region, center region, periphery region) and applies different compression rates to each region. This segmentation allows the system to transmit critical high-quality data for regions where users are likely to focus attention while using lower compression for less critical regions, thereby reducing overall transmission time while maintaining perceived image quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different compression rates to different unit regions based on estimated attention distribution. High-compression is applied to regions with lower estimated attention (periphery, corners) while low-compression or no compression is applied to regions with higher estimated attention (center, gaze direction). This local quality adjustment optimizes the balance between transmission speed and image quality for the most visually important areas.
2Productivity
If compression rate is increased to reduce data transmission size, then transmission speed improves, but image quality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the image into multiple unit regions and applies different compression rates to each segment based on estimated user attention. This allows the system to achieve high transmission speed overall while maintaining high image quality in critical regions where users are likely to focus attention.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies variable compression rates locally across different regions of the image. Regions with higher estimated attention receive lower compression (higher quality) while regions with lower estimated attention receive higher compression (lower quality). This local quality differentiation maximizes the perceived image quality for the most important areas while minimizing total data transmission size.
Data Source
AI summary
A gaze point acquisition section in a compression coding section of a server acquires position information associated with a gaze point of a user in a moving image that is generated by an image forming section and is displayed on a client. An attention degree estimation section estimates an attention degree on the basis of a position of the gaze point, for each of unit regions produced by dividing a frame plane. A compression coding processing section compression-codes the moving image at a compression rate varied in the frame plane according to a distribution of the attention degrees. A communication section transmits compression-coded data to an image processing apparatus.