A stereo display prototype with multiple focal distances

Abstract

Typical stereo displays provide incorrect focus cues because the light comes from a single surface. We describe a prototype stereo display comprising two independent fixed-viewpoint volumetric displays.Like autostereoscopic volumetric displays, fixedviewpoint volumetric displays generate near-correct focus cues without tracking eye position, because light comes from sources at the correct focal distances. (In our prototype, from three image planes at different physical distances.) Unlike autostereoscopic volumetric displays, however, fixed-viewpoint volumetric displays retain the qualities of modern projective graphics: view-dependent lighting effects such as occlusion, specularity, and reflection are correctly depicted; modern graphics processor and 2-D display technology can be utilized; and realistic fields of view and depths of field can be implemented. While not a practical solution for general-purpose viewing, our prototype display is a proof of concept and a platform for ongoing vision research. The design, implementation, and verification of this stereo display are described, including a novel technique of filtering along visual lines using 1-D texture mapping.

Systematic characterization and optimization of 3D light field displays

“…The conventional S3D displays fail to render correct retinal blur effects and stimulate natural eye accommodation response, which causes several cue conflicts and is considered as one of the key contributing factors to various visual artifacts associated with viewing S3D displays, such as distorted depth perception [3] and visual discomfort [4]. In recent years, several display methods that are potentially capable of resolving the VAC problem have been demonstrated, including holographic displays [5], volumetric displays [6,7], multi-focal plane displays [8][9][10] and light field displays [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Among these different methods, the light field display method is considered as one of the most promising 3D display techniques.…”

Depth-Fused 3D Imagery on an Immaterial Display

“…In addition to the simulation of multiple depth cues, the main advantage of DFD is that it avoids the fatigue problems of stereo displays [19] and does not require any user-worn glasses. This technique has been used for a prototype compact display [4], and the interaction between DFD and stereo imaging has been explored [20], [21], but always with two or three parallel screens and a single viewing location. One of our contributions is to show that DFD is still effective for arbitrary screen configurations and viewing locations.…”

“…Accommodation is not a very strong depth cue, and by itself is not sufficient to bring out DFD depth impression [2]. On the other hand, we also know that it significantly helps depth impression, when accommodation is in sync with convergence and disparity [20]. The simulator version used in this work represents screens as simple semitransparent polygons onto which the projected images are applied using 2D textures calculated on the fly in offscreen buffers.…”

Lightweight spatial-multiplexed dual focal-plane head-mounted display using two freeform prisms

“…Rolland et al [7] presented a comprehensive investigation to determine the minimum number of focal planes required for a spatial-multiplexed head-mounted display (HMD). They concluded that an image source consisting of a stack of at least 14 planar displays with a total thickness of 22.5 mm is required to accommodate from 0 to 2 D. Akeley et al developed a three focal-plane prototype by dividing a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel into three zones located at different physical distances with three half mirrors [8] . They studied a depth-filtering rendering technique to determine how the image intensity at each pixel should be assigned to the focal planes, thus reducing the number of focal planes [8,12] .…”

“…They concluded that an image source consisting of a stack of at least 14 planar displays with a total thickness of 22.5 mm is required to accommodate from 0 to 2 D. Akeley et al developed a three focal-plane prototype by dividing a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel into three zones located at different physical distances with three half mirrors [8] . They studied a depth-filtering rendering technique to determine how the image intensity at each pixel should be assigned to the focal planes, thus reducing the number of focal planes [8,12] . MacKenzie et al then carried out experiments with a similar prototype as that of Akeley et al [9] .…”