Modeling and Exploiting the Time Course of Chromatic Adaptation for Display Power Optimizations in Virtual Reality

2025-09-27

AI Summary

To address the trade-off between high power consumption and visual quality in OLED displays for VR, this paper proposes a non-eye-tracking power optimization method leveraging the dynamic characteristics of human chromatic adaptation. We first establish a psychophysical model of chromatic adaptation states under varying illuminance, enabling optimization of display luminance trajectories—by controlling both the rate and magnitude of illuminance transitions—within perceptually acceptable degradation bounds. The method integrates psychophysical experimentation, dynamic modeling, and optimal trajectory computation, and is compatible with conventional dimming techniques. Experimental results demonstrate up to 31% reduction in display power consumption without statistically significant subjective quality degradation, substantially outperforming instantaneous dimming approaches. Our core contribution lies in explicitly modeling the temporal dynamics of chromatic adaptation as a controllable dimension for display optimization, thereby overcoming the visual limitations inherent in static or frame-wise dimming strategies.

Technology Category

• Computer Vision: Motion & Tracking
• Search and Optimization: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Search
• Machine Learning: Optimization

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: On-Device user modeling, personalization, and recommendation
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Cost models of using LLMs in production systems

Abstract

We introduce a gaze-tracking--free method to reduce OLED display power consumption in VR with minimal perceptual impact. This technique exploits the time course of chromatic adaptation, the human visual system's ability to maintain stable color perception under changing illumination. To that end, we propose a novel psychophysical paradigm that models how human adaptation state changes with the scene illuminant. We exploit this model to compute an optimal illuminant shift trajectory, controlling the rate and extent of illumination change, to reduce display power under a given perceptual loss budget. Our technique significantly improves the perceptual quality over prior work that applies illumination shifts instantaneously. Our technique can also be combined with prior work on luminance dimming to reduce display power by 31% with no statistical loss of perceptual quality.

Problem

• Modeling human chromatic adaptation dynamics for VR displays
• Reducing OLED power consumption while preserving visual quality
• Optimizing gradual illuminant shifts within perceptual loss budgets

Innovation

• Gaze-tracking-free OLED power reduction method
• Modeling chromatic adaptation time course changes
• Optimal illuminant shift trajectory for power savings