Influence of resolution degradation on distance estimation in virtual space displaying static and dynamic image

The virtual reality (VR) technology has been used as the application of architectural presentation or simulation tool in the field of industry. The high immersion and intuitive visual information are the great merits of design evaluation or environmental simulation when we are using the virtual environments. But the distortion of distance perception in VR is still a big problem when the accuracy of distance presentation is strictly required. In this paper, we have carried out some experiments about distance estimation in the immersive virtual environments to verify the factors and their influence. We made a hypothesis that the lack of the information for the user in VR causes the different distance estimation from the real world because users are usually comfortable with moving fast and long distance in VR environments. So, we carried out basic experiment to prove our hypothesis that the lack of information makes subjects estimate the walked distance in VR shorter compared with the same distance in real. Also, among the factors that probably affect the distance estimation in VR, we verified the influence of the image resolution. The influence of resolution degradation of image on the distance estimation was verified with the condition of static and dynamic images. The results showed that the resolution has deep relation with the distance estimation. For example, the subject underestimated the distance at the lower resolution condition. We also find the methods of the making the lower resolution image could affects on the visual perception of subjects