Visual comfort assessment in stereoscopic 3D images using salient object disparity

Abstract

Visual comfort (VC) assessment in stereoscopic three-dimensional (S3D) images using salient object disparity (SOD) is proposed. Through careful observations in S3D displays, it has been discovered that SOD is a key factor that influences VC in S3D images. This is because the human visual system controls the eye's lens to focus on the salient object and adjusts the salient object to the zero parallax plane. Thus, if the salient object is not adjusted to the zero parallax, the S3D image causes severe visual discomfort in the human brain. Based on human depth perception, the disparity of salient object is combined with the maximum disparity as the feature for VC prediction. Experimental results show that the proposed method substantially improves the VC prediction performance in S3D images compared with conventional prediction methods.