HDR displays: a validation against reality

In the real world the contrast between bright areas, directly illuminated by the sun, and dark shadows can be of 6 or 7 orders of magnitude. Although such huge contrast ratio is common in the natural world when these luminance levels are to be displayed on a typical monitor, the range is far too large. Bright areas appear overly saturated and shadows are displayed as black. Until recently, the only approach to solve this problem was to compress the luminance component of a high dynamic range (HDR) scene. Such techniques are known as tone mapping. However, even tone mapping operators are not always capable of producing sufficient contrast reduction. In this paper we present the results of a psychophysical investigation to validate a novel HDR display which is capable of contrast ratios similar to what is present in the physical world. Images displayed on this device are an accurate representation of a window on a scene and may not be equivalent as standing in the real scene due to a lack of peripheral information. We describe three perceptual studies with the goal of validating the device against real scenes in terms of peripheral vision.