Nick HollimanUniversity of YorkDepartment of Theatre, Film, and TelevisionBaird LaneYork, United Kingdom, YO10 5DDTakashi KawaiWaseda UniversityDepartment of Intermedia Art and Science4-1 03 ChomeOkubu Shinjuku-Ku, Japan 169-8555This special section was made possible by the enthusiasm ofthe research community in stereoscopic displays and applica-tions,alevelofinterestthathasnowsustainedthe associatedSPIE/IS&T Conference into its 25th year. This is a noteworthyachievement for such a young field in which there is nowa depth and breadth of research that sustains a vibrantinternational group of researchers.The fundamental challenges in the field include displaydesign requiring the development of high quality optical ele-ments thatdelivercontrolleddirectional illuminationinordertocompletely separate information intended for the left and righteyes. The article by Ishizuka et al. addresses this challenge,analyzing how dot matrix light sources can be collimated withconvex lenses to generate a time-sequential backlight suit-able for use with high-speed LCD image sources to createan autostereoscopic display system.Recently computational methods have become central tomany display designs, enabling a new range of optical con-figurations to become practical displays by utilizing advancedreal-time image processing. The article by Jones et al. dem-onstrates this, combining eye-tracking and smooth real-timeimage interpolation to enable an array of pico-projectors tocreate an autostereoscopic display that supports multipleviewers. The resulting display system supports both horizon-tal and vertical parallax and can be constructed from off-the-shelf projectors, screen materials, and graphics hardware.As displays increasingly gain higher quality, the challengefor content production is to respond with higher quality andmore efficient methods for acquiring stereoscopic imagery.One important area of content production is omnidirectionalstereoscopicimageryasanalyzedbyGurrierietal.Thisarticleproposes a mathematical framework to compare acquisitionstrategies to create stereoscopic panoramas using a smallnumber of stereoscopic images, allowing an understandingand comparison of the trade-offs between differentalgorithms.An underpinning theme across both displays and theirapplications is that of human factors since all of the compo-nents in the production and delivery chain must account forand work within the performance limits of the human visualsystem. The article by Lee et al. tackles the challenge of pre-dictingwhenanobserverwillfindavideotobeuncomfortable.They investigate how stereoscopic disparity might combinewith motion to form an overall prediction of visual discomfort.This takes a step toward establishing quality screening met-rics for video content.As researchers continue to address the fundamental chal-lengesinstereoscopicdisplaysandapplications,wearemov-ing closer to the possibility that stereoscopic informationpresentation will be an everyday experience on all displaydevices. Certainly over the 25 years of the SD&A conference,thedisplays,toolsandstandardshavemovedforwardimpres-sively and the potential impact of the field has been demon-strated in application areas as diverse as cinema, games,education, and health-care systems.Thanks are due to the JEI editorial staff who patientlyhelped us bring this special section together while we werealso working to deliver the 25th anniversary conference pro-gram. Thanks also to all of the reviewers who worked hard toensure the submissions were of the highest quality and, ofcourse, most importantly to the authors who submitted theirwork and who responded quickly to the reviewers’ comments.