Visual Fatigue Reduction for Immersive Stereoscopic Displays by Disparity, Content, and Focus-Point Adapted Blur

Abstract

As stereoscopic devices become widely used (immersion-based working environments, stereoscopically viewed movies, autostereoscopic screens, etc), exposure to stereoscopic images can become lengthy, and some eyestrain can set in. We propose a method for reducing eyestrain induced by stereoscopic vision. After reviewing sources of eyestrain linked to stereoscopic vision, we will focus on one of these sources: images with high-frequency contents associated with large disparities. We will put forward an algorithm for removing irritating high frequencies in high disparity zones (i.e., for virtual objects appearing far from the real screen level). We will elaborate on our testing protocol to establish that our processing reduces eyestrain caused by stereoscopic vision, both objectively and subjectively. We will subsequently quantify the positive effects of our algorithm on the relief of eyestrain. As our processing alters the visual quality of the virtual world, we propose a new adaptation of our method to remove this drawback by coupling an eye tracking to our original processing to keep visual quality on the focus point.