Overt visual attention on rendered 3D objects

This work covers multiple aspects of overt visual attention on 3D renders: measurement, projection, visualization, and application to studying the influence of material appearance on looking behaviour. In the scope of this work, we ran an eye-tracking experiment in which the observers are presented with animations of rotating 3D objects. The objects were rendered to simulate different metallic appearance, particularly smooth (glossy), rough (matte), and coated gold. The eye-tracking results illustrate how material appearance itself influences the observer's attention, while all the other parameters remain unchanged. In order to make visualization of the attention maps more natural and also make the analysis more accurate, we develop a novel technique of projection of gaze fixations on the 3D surface of the figure itself, instead of the conventional 2D plane of the screen. The proposed methodology will be useful for further studies of attention and saliency in the computer graphics domain.