The Effect of Interactive Cues on the Perception of Angiographic Volumes in Virtual Reality

In this paper, we evaluate the effect of depth cues on the perception of three-dimensional cerebral angiographic data in a virtual reality (VR) environment. Specifically, a user study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of shading, pseudo-chromadepth and aerial perspective, both with and without a dynamic component, where the volume rendering parameters are modified based on the motion of the VR controllers. The results of the study showed that the type of cue that is used has little impact on decision time or relative depth perception, contrary to what has been previously observed in related works using 2D displays. However, shading resulted in better spatial understanding of local vascular structures. In terms of the effect of the dynamic cues, although they resulted in worse depth perception, they also resulted in less head movement which may provide a more ergonomic and intuitive solution for data exploration. This work is a first step towards gaining a better understanding of the interplay between interactive perceptual rendering and the impact is on spatial understanding of volume rendered medical data within VR contexts.