DiCE: dichoptic contrast enhancement for binocular displays

In stereoscopic displays, such as those used in VR/AR headsets, our two eyes are presented with different views. The disparity between the views is typically used to convey depth cues, but it could be used for other purposes. We devise a novel technique that takes advantage of binocular fusion to boost perceived local contrast and visual quality of images. Since the technique is based on fixed tone-curves, it has negligible computational cost and it is well suited for real-time applications, such as VR rendering. To control the trade-off between the level of enhancement and binocular rivalry, we conduct a series of experiments that lead to a new finding, explaining the factors that dominate the rivalry perception in a dichoptic presentation where two images of different contrasts are displayed. With this new inding, we demonstrate that the enhancement can be quantitatively measured and binocular rivalry is well controlled.