Gaze-Driven Display Enhancement for Cockpit Information Clutter
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Solution Overview
Problem
In complex display environments like aircraft cockpits and control centers, users face difficulty in focusing on and handling relevant data due to information clutter, making it hard to react promptly to critical information.
Innovation Solution
A system that tracks a user's line of sight (LOS) to identify elements of interest and enhances relevant data by modifying visual parameters, such as size, brightness, or adding additional information, while attenuating surrounding data, allowing users to navigate and select information layers intuitively using gaze direction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If a large amount of data is displayed to provide comprehensive information, then information completeness is improved, but display clutter increases making it difficult for users to focus on relevant data
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by making different regions of the display have different visual characteristics. The foveal region (center of gaze) displays high-detail, enhanced information while the peripheral regions display lower-detail or attenuated information. This allows comprehensive data to be presented throughout the display while ensuring the user's focus area receives prioritized, enhanced visualization.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamics by continuously adapting the display based on real-time gaze tracking. As the user moves their eyes, the system dynamically shifts which elements receive enhancement and which are attenuated. This creates a dynamic information hierarchy that follows user attention, allowing comprehensive information availability while maintaining ease of focus on currently relevant data.
2Loss of information
If comprehensive data is presented on displays, then information completeness is improved, but cognitive load increases making it hard to react promptly to critical information
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-enhancing the visual characteristics of data elements before the user needs to process them. The system uses gaze prediction and tracking to identify which elements will become critical soon and enhances them in advance. This reduces the cognitive processing time needed when critical information appears, as the enhancement work has already been done.
Solution Approach 2:
By applying local quality enhancement only to critical or currently-gazed-at elements rather than uniformly enhancing all data, the system reduces overall cognitive load while maintaining quick access to critical information. The selective enhancement approach prevents information overload while ensuring rapid reaction capability to important data.
3Loss of information
If visual enhancement data is displayed to highlight critical information, then relevance of displayed information is improved, but display clutter increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies partial action by selectively enhancing only the most relevant data elements rather than enhancing all elements uniformly. The system uses gaze direction and relevance algorithms to determine which subset of elements deserves enhancement, applying visual enhancement partially to those elements while leaving others in their original state or attenuated. This reduces display complexity while maintaining high relevance for critical information.
Solution Approach 2:
The enhancement strategy is dynamic rather than static. The system continuously adjusts which elements receive enhancement based on real-time gaze tracking and relevance assessment. This dynamic approach allows the display to adapt to changing user needs, maintaining simplicity when few elements are relevant while providing comprehensive enhancement when multiple elements require attention.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems are provided for using a user's line of sight (LOS) and/or gaze direction to enhance displayed data and control various displays and instruments. The user's LOS is tracked, corresponding element(s) in a scene at which the user gazes are identified, e.g., in a database, and respective displayed data are enhanced or otherwise manipulated with respect to the identified element(s). The database may be multilayered and may comprise data layers which are conformal to a scene representation. Users may also select, using their LOS, among multiple layers of information and among multiple displayed parts to enhance or attenuate respective layers or parts. Designated elements may be real-world elements, displayed elements or instruments in the operational surroundings of the user. Identification of elements at which LOSs of multiple users are aimed at may be used for exchange of information among the users.