How visual discomfort changes with horizontal viewing angle on stereoscopic display

Abstract: When viewing stereoscopic displays, people may not always be able to stay exactly in front of the display. It is known that viewing stereoscopic display from different vertical angles lead to different visual discomfort. However, the effects of horizontal viewing angle on stereoscopic visual discomfort have been rarely investigated, especially for household stereoscopic displays. In this study, subjects were required to view a stereoscopic display from various horizontal viewing angles, and assessed their visual discomfort during viewing. The visual stimuli have various amount of disparities: positive disparity, negative disparity or zero disparity. Results showed that the visual discomfort changes with horizontal viewing angle, and greater angles generally lead to more serious visual discomfort. Furthermore, the relationship between visual discomfort and horizontal viewing angle can be approximately expressed by a quadratic function.