Visual storytelling in 2D and stereoscopic 3D video: effect of blur on visual attention
Quan Huynh‐Thu, Cyril Vienne, Laurent Blondé · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2013
Visual attention is an inherent mechanism that plays an important role in the human visual perception. As our visual system has limited capacity and cannot efficiently process the information from the entire visual field, we focus our attention on specific areas of interest in the image for detailed analysis of these areas. In the context of media entertainment, the viewers’ visual attention deployment is also influenced by the art of visual storytelling. To this date, visual editing and composition of scenes in stereoscopic 3D content creation still mostly follows those used in 2D. In particular, out-of-focus blur is often used in 2D motion pictures and photography to drive the viewer’s attention towards a sharp area of the image. In this paper, we study specifically the impact of defocused foreground objects on visual attention deployment in stereoscopic 3D content. For that purpose, we conducted a subjective experiment using an eyetracker. Our results bring more insights on the deployment of visual attention in stereoscopic 3D content viewing, and provide further understanding on visual attention behavior differences between 2D and 3D. Our results show that a traditional 2D scene compositing approach such as the use of foreground blur does not necessarily produce the same effect on visual attention deployment in 2D and 3D. Implications for stereoscopic content creation and visual fatigue are discussed.