Virtual reality totally transforms gaming and film experiences-the illusion of reality is incredibly strong, compared with traditional game or film experiences. Photo / Supplied
Virtual reality totally transforms gaming and film experiences-the illusion of reality is incredibly strong, compared with traditional game or film experiences. Photo / Supplied
Kieran Carnegie's Master's research is helping find a solution for simulator sickness, a phenomena where people feel sick when immersed in environments such as the computer-generated worlds of virtual reality (VR).
"VR totally transforms gaming and film experiences-the illusion of reality is incredibly strong, compared with traditional game or filmexperiences. However, there is a significant hurdle to overcome-around 80 to 90 percent of people who use it feel sick, with symptoms that are practically identical to seasickness or motion sickness."
Kieran's research explored how people react to VR immersion and the rendering methods used to display content from games and films on devices such as the Oculus Rift. This led Kieran to a novel idea about what causes simulator sickness and how to reduce it.
"We have results that show dynamic depth of field, in which we estimate where someone is looking and blur content on the screen to mimic the out-of-focus blur you see in reality. This significantly reduces the sickness or discomfort that people experience on the Oculus."
Kieran says he'd always enjoyed gaming and computers but wanted to understand how the systems worked and this interest drew him to Computer Graphics.
"In addition to studying Physics at undergraduate level, I took Computer Science and enjoyed it a lot, so my postgraduate study started as Computer Science. I ended up finding that computer graphics was the part I enjoyed most, as it gave me a discipline that combined my physics knowledge with coding."
He is grateful for the opportunity to complete a Master's degree in the relatively new area of virtual reality.
"I have met a lot of new people and got to do some really awesome research due to the flexibility in postgraduate study."
