Fighting cybersickness
Institutional Communication Service
26 June 2023
As virtual reality gains popularity, technology companies are investing heavily in creating more realistic and accessible solutions. However, a significant issue that needs to be addressed is cybersickness - the discomfort, fatigue, dizziness, and nausea many people experience when using VR headsets. This is caused mainly by the discrepancy between what the eyes see in the visor and the spatial orientation perceived by the inner ear, but other factors come into play.
In an interview with Swissinfo, Piotr Didyk, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Informatics at Università della Svizzera italiana and head of the Perception, Display, and Fabrication research group, explained that virtual reality sickness can be caused by poor image resolution, slow mapping of movements on the screen, and a low refresh rate. However, these issues can be addressed through foveated rendering, which uses eye tracking to focus computing power on the part of the image being viewed, while using fewer resources for the peripheral areas of the visual field.
