Simplification of 3D Graphics for Mobile Devices: Exploring the Trade-off Between Energy Savings and User Perceptions of Visual Quality

3D graphics have quickly become a popular form of media that can also be accessed with today’s mobile devices. However, the use of 3D applications with mobile devices is typically a very energy-consuming task due to the processing complexity and the large file size of 3D graphics. As a result, their use may lead to rapid depletion of the limited battery life. In this paper, we investigate how much energy savings can be gained in the transmission and rendering of 3D graphics by simplifying geometry data. In this connection, we also examine users’ perceptions on the visual quality of the simplified 3D models. The results of this paper provide new knowledge on the energy savings that can be gained through geometry simplification, as well as on how much the geometry can be simplified before the visual quality of 3D models becomes unacceptable for the mobile users. Based on the results, it can be concluded that geometry simplification can provide significant energy savings for mobile devices without disturbing the users. When geometry simplification is combined with distance based adjustment of detail, up to 52% energy savings were gained in our experiments compared to using only a single high quality 3D model.