HDR VR

The human visual system can resolve luminances from near zero to over a million candelas per meter squared (nits), and is able to simultaneously resolve over 4 orders of magnitude without adaptation [Kunkel and Reinhard 2010]. While most traditional displays only replicate a fraction of this range, high-dynamic-range (HDR) displays aim to support ranges closer to perceptual limits [Reinhard et al. 2010] and have achieved widespread use in cinemas and home theaters, but the perceptual impact of HDR remain largely unexplored in the context of Virtual Reality (VR) displays, which are typically limited to peak luminance values below 200 nits [Mehrfard et al. 2019]. To address this, we present an HDR VR demonstrator with a display system comprised entirely of off-the-shelf parts, capable of peak luminances over 16,000 nits. We achieve this without reducing the field of view (FOV) or simultaneous contrast relative to commercially-available VR headsets, while maintaining support for binocular and motion parallax depth cues. Consequently, our prototype has the potential to achieve a higher degree of perceptual realism than existing direct-view devices like HDR televisions and other high-luminance prototypes.