Optical characterization and measurements of autostereoscopic 3D displays

Abstract

3D or autostereoscopic display technologies offer attractive solutions for enriching the multimedia experience. However, both characterization and comparison of 3D displays have been challenging when the definitions for the consistent measurement methods have been lacking and displays with similar specifications may appear quite different. Earlier we have investigated how the optical properties of autostereoscopic (3D) displays can be objectively measured and what are the main characteristics defining the perceived image quality. In this paper the discussion is extended to cover the viewing freedom (VF) and the definition for the optimum viewing distance (OVD) is elaborated. VF is the volume inside which the eyes have to be to see an acceptable 3D image. Characteristics limiting the VF space are proposed to be 3D crosstalk, luminance difference and color difference. Since the 3D crosstalk can be presumed to be dominating the quality of the end user experience and in our approach is forming the basis for the calculations of the other optical parameters, the reliability of the 3D crosstalk measurements is investigated. Furthermore the effect on the derived VF definition is evaluated. We have performed comparison 3D crosstalk measurements with different measurement device apertures and the effect of different measurement geometry on the results on actual 3D displays is reported.