3D Nausea Solved By Eye-Tracking 116
An anonymous reader writes "If you are like me, then the slightest disparity in those 3D movies causes nausea — and I know it does with thousands of others too. LG claims to have solved the problem with a new technology that uses eye-tracking, similar to those red-eye detectors in digital cameras, adjusting the 3D display so that you don't get sick. Due to be available in LG's glasses-free 3D computer monitor it also displays normal 2D stuff, so even if you don't use the 3D much it might be worth a try. I plan on buying one of the 20-inch monitors this fall when it becomes available in the U.S. (It's only in Korea now.) If it works as advertised great; if not, at least I can still use it as a regular monitor."
But if you're not alone... (Score:1, Interesting)
And how well does this work when you have more than one pair of eyes to track...? Some of us have friends...
Focal depth must match stereo depth. (Score:5, Interesting)
As I wrote on Gizmag:
As an armchair scientist, I have been experimenting with screens for quite a while. Trying to plot out what factors are involved for 3D display and depth perception.
I have been following this whole 3D craze with dismay because TV builders have failed to address the fundamentals.
Stereo vision is only one aspect of 3D vision and in fact not even nearly as powerful as some other effects. Although there are many causing discomfort the light ray divergence is most relevant.
Your eye also tells you how far away something is by the amount of work it needs to do to bring it into focus. The lens in your eye bends incoming light rays so they focus on your retina similar to how a photo camera works. To get the best possible 3D effect in commercial flight simulators, they make use of collimated displays.
Consider the pixels on your LCD screen a light sources. Take a pixel and you can consider it to be a light point that radiates light in all directions. After all you want to see the screen at many viewing angles. So the light rays diverge and the lens in your eye needs to bring the rays that hit the eye together to focus on your retina.
A collimated display emits light rays that are more or less parallel. Your eyes can relax more in order to focus which is an very powerful depth suggestion.
Stereo vision and focal distance need to match in order to get rid of the worst nauseating effect. Stereo vision may suggest something is in front of the screen but your eye disagrees because it needs to focus on the screen. These two inputs are fighting each other continuously.
The only way to solve this problem is if we can build a display with an adjustable micro lens in front of each screen pixel. If we can control the light ray divergence from a single pixel in real-time then we can match the stereo vision with focal distance and finally get rid if this mismatch. Added benefit is that displays like this can be adjusted for your eyes so you can watch TV without your glasses. They would make really good computer monitors.
A pixel worth of imagery normally only contains R, G and B channels for Red, Green and Blue light that combine to any color. In addition each pixel needs a fourth channel indicating the depth of the pixel. You may find the focal depth powerful enough without the need for stereo vision. You can try this simply by closing one eye and look around and notice how your eye adjusts to things nearby and far away.