Myopia in Head-Worn Virtual Reality

Lara Panfili, Michael Wimmer, Katharina Krösl

Abstract: In this work, we investigate the influence of myopia on the perceived visual acuity (VA) in head-worn virtual reality (VR). Factors such as display resolution or vision capabilities of users influence the VA in VR. We simulated eyesight tests in VR and on a desktop screen and conducted a user study comparing VA measurements of participants with normal sight and participants with myopia. Surprisingly, our results suggest that people with severe myopia can see better in VR than in the real world, while the VA of people with normal or corrected sight or mild myopia is reduced in VR.