Super stereoscopy technique for comfortable and realistic 3D displays

Two well-known problems of stereoscopic displays are the accommodation-convergence conflict and the lack of natural blur for defocused objects. We present a new technique that we name Super Stereoscopy (SS3D) to provide a convenient solution to these problems. Regular stereoscopic glasses are replaced by SS3D glasses which deliver at least two parallax images per eye through pinholes equipped with light selective filters. The pinholes generate blur-free retinal images so as to enable correct accommodation, while the delivery of multiple parallax images per eye creates an approximate blur effect for defocused objects. Experiments performed with cameras and human viewers indicate that the technique works as desired. In case two, pinholes equipped with color filters per eye are used; the technique can be used on a regular stereoscopic display by only uploading a new content, without requiring any change in display hardware, driver, or frame rate. Apart from some tolerable loss in display brightness and decrease in natural spatial resolution limit of the eye because of pinholes, the technique is quite promising for comfortable and realistic 3D vision, especially enabling the display of close objects that are not possible to display and comfortably view on regular 3DTV and cinema. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America