Far Distance Estimation in Mixed Reality

Abstract

Mixed reality is increasingly being used for training, especially for tasks that are difficult for humans to perform such as far distance perception. Although there has been much prior work on the perception of distance in mixed reality, the majority of the work has focused on distances ranging up to about 30 meters. The little work that has investigated distance perception beyond 30 meters has been mixed in terms of whether people tend to over- or underestimate distances in this range. In the current study, we investigated the perception of distances ranging from 25-500 meters in a fully mediated outdoor environment using the ZED Mini and HTC Vive Pro. To our knowledge, no work has examined distance perception to this range in mixed reality. Participants in the study verbally estimated the distances to a variety of objects. Distances were overestimated from 25-200 meters but underestimated from 300-500 meters. Overall, far distance perception in mixed reality may be biased in different directions depending on the range of distances, suggesting a need for future research in this area to support training of far distance perception.