Human Discrimination of Depth of Field in Stereoscopic and Nonstereoscopic Photographs

Abstract

Abstract. Depth of field (DOF) is defined as the distance range within which objects are perceived as sharp. Previous research has focused on blur discrimination in artificial stimuli and natural photographs. The discrimination of DOF, however, has received less attention. Since DOF introduces blur which is related to distance in depth, many levels of blur are simultaneously present. As a consequence, it is unclear whether discrimination thresholds for blur are appropriate for predicting discrimination thresholds for DOF. We therefore measured discrimination thresholds for DOF using a two-alternative forced-choice task. Ten participants were asked to observe two images and to select the one with the larger DOF. We manipulated the scale of the scene-that is, the actual depth in the scene. We conducted the experiment under stereoscopic and nonstereoscopic viewing conditions. We found that the threshold for a large DOF (39.1 mm) was higher than for a small DOF (10.1 mm), and the thresholds decreased when scale of scene increased. We also found that there was no significant difference between stereoscopic and nonstereoscopic conditions. We compared our results with thresholds predicted from the literature. We concluded that using blur discrimination thresholds to discriminate DOF may lead to erroneous conclusions because the depth in the scene significantly affects people's DOF discrimination ability.

Effects of depth of field on eye movement

“…The size of the stimuli displayed on the screens was constrained by the visual angle of the camera. More details could be seen in the authors' previous work [14].…”

“…For each scene, six levels of depth of field were created via manipulating the aperture size of the camera: F2, F3.2, F5, F8, F13, and F20. These six levels of depth of field were definitely able to be discriminated by observers [14]. F2 represented the smallest depth of field and F20 represented the largest depth of field.…”

The Effects of Depth of Field on Subjective Evaluation of Aesthetic Appeal and Image Quality of Photographs

“…We labelled these photographs into eight categories according to their content: animals, architecture, flowers, food, sports, street, landscape and artificial. The artificial photographs were created by the authors, and the details can be found in prevous papers [15], [16]. The depth of field was fully controlled in our own photographs, and there were three levles: 5.7mm, 18.4mm, and 68.9mm respectively.…”

Using Gameplay and Players Data to Recommend Strategies to Reduce Cybersickness

“…For this reason, many researches involving sickness in HMDs have been done recently in order to minimize sickness in these devices [8], [18], [1]. In this research, we map the various causes and symptoms of sickness that occurred during the use of HMDs (be it machine or human actions) [17], [21], [13], [3].…”