Balanced incomplete designs for 3D perceptual quality estimation

Many factors, such as the number of vertices and the resolution of texture, can affect the display quality of 3D objects. When the resources of a graphics system are not sufficient to render the ideal image, degradation is inevitable. It is therefore important to study how individual factors affect the overall quality, and how the degradation can be controlled given limited resources. The essential factors determining the display quality are reviewed and a 3D perceptual estimation method is described. One of the major concerns in designing perceptual experiments is the large number of evaluations to be performed by judges, which results in fatigue and errors in judgement. To reduce judging fatigue and increase reliability of evaluations we propose using a statistical approach, following the design of experiments technique of balanced incomplete block design (BIBD). We develop models following BIBD for perceptual experiments and validate our model with experimental results. Even though the BIBD framework for perceptual evaluations is described in the context of 3D quality estimation, the approach can be used in other perceptual evaluation scenarios as well.