3DTV - breaks your 3D perception.

For All Of You Who Are Planning To Buy A 3DTV: For God’s Sake Don’t…

Your brain has about 10 different clues which it uses to detect depth. When you’re in the theatre [watching a 3D movie] you’re only getting one clue – which is parallax.
So what happens is while you’re in the theatre your brain is ignoring all of the other depth cues, throwing the other nine away and just training on the one. This produces a situation which is known technically as “binocular dysphoria”.
Now what’ll happen is you’ll leave the theatre and your perception – your depth perception – will be screwed up. It’ll snap back to normal [but] it’ll take different times – because people are on a bell curve, some will snap back immediately, some will snap back in an hour and so on.
Now I want you to imagine what happens when you’re doing that to yourself night after night after night. And, of course, we realised we’d be giving these systems to six year olds whose brains are incredibly plastic, and would actually be training to a new set of visual stimuli.
None of this has been thought through by any of the consumer electronics companies who are intent on giving you 3D. And it’s not a problem if you’re going to see a movie. But if you’re going to be using it night after night in your living room, it’s actually probably quite unhealthy.”
 
In all seriousness though...why can 3D movies and gaming include monocular cuing as well as parallax? If I'm filming in parallax (two camera lenses about eye-distance apart) and the distances are right then the monocular cues for size and angle should be right, no?
 
this article makes sense, but not really.

I also drive PC simulators with real wheel, shifts, clutch etc. But all this experience doesn't cross paths with my daily driving, but according to this news it should because I'm using different stimuli to the same thing.


My 3D experience was seamless. I took off the glasses several times and never felt the need to adjust.

also, even if real, we are talking probably of 12 hours of real 3D against 2hours of fake 3D per day. Brain isn't stupid.
 
Surely the only time you'll feel the need to adjust is after the car has hit you as you misjudged how far away it actually was.
 
In all seriousness though...why can 3D movies and gaming include monocular cuing as well as parallax? If I'm filming in parallax (two camera lenses about eye-distance apart) and the distances are right then the monocular cues for size and angle should be right, no?

Short answer no. Since not everyone's eye's are the same distance apart. Especially going from child to adult.

At least with VR headsets you can usually adjust each eye to try to approximate RL, you can't do that with movies.

And even with that extended use of VR can be hugely disorienting then coming back to the "real" world.

Regards,
SB
 
I really cant see anything of this happening.


I remember when the first car with the brakelights up high was released (fiat punto), every news agency was "panicking" because it would "induce us in error regarding its position". Its not the same thing as 3D but the fear is.
 
I thought that parallax was exactly what we're not getting in 3D TV? At least I've always considered that to be the type of 3D your brain can still infer even if you have only one eye, by seeing non-moving objects at a greater distance move slower across the horizon than objects at a closer distance (cf parallax scrolling in old videogames).

This is why I've also been thinking that with 3D video games that also have head and perhaps even eye tracking, like we could get to see with PS3 games in the near future, that's going to cover by far the most of 3D perception that we generally rely on.

Note that I've been driving on computer before I got my driving licence, and my driving instructor was hugely impressed from day one with my accuracy - I even had to adjust my driving so that I got a few inches further away from the curbs to make my instructor more comfortable ;).

The limitations of 3D on a 2D screen teach your brain to learn to be aware of the 3D space around you. This is also why 3D computer games in general (the old fashioned ones we currently have on 2D screens) always contribute quite strongly to someone's 3D perception - kids especially increase their spatial awareness very quickly thanks to computer games, one of the few clear benefits, the others being fine motor skills primarily.

As for the distance apart thing for the eyes, I don't buy that this could be a big issue for the theatre, as everything is so far away that distance isn't going to matter much. But who knows? There might be an issue theoretically with TV sets really nearby though. Perhaps we'll end up having adjustable glasses for this eventually.
 
I actually think what BZB posted makes some sense and could be detrimental.

Arwin you are right that 3D games help with spatial awareness, not getting lost/turned around etc... but that is quite different to changing the stimuli to the brain. Our brains are smart and can adapt quickly, but that is bad in this situation in that they would adapt to the wrong thing. Who know s though perhaps it will make us use our brains in a new way so we see the fake 3D and real 3D separately or something.
 
Short answer no. Since not everyone's eye's are the same distance apart. Especially going from child to adult.

At least with VR headsets you can usually adjust each eye to try to approximate RL, you can't do that with movies.

And even with that extended use of VR can be hugely disorienting then coming back to the "real" world.

Regards,
SB
IIRC from a lecture "The Forgotten Cue" by Kurt Akeley at Graphics Hardware 2003, the biggest problem with standard HMD with close objects is that the brain expects to have to change the focal distance of the eye to match the convergence angle of the eyes. Standard HMDs will have a fixed and relatively close focal distance.

To test this they built what Akeley described as a "Display mounted head" that had 3x2 displays with each pair of displays at increasing distances and the views combined optically with half-silvered mirrors. An object at depth "Z" would be rendered, with appropriate blending, into the best matching display or pair of displays.

I suspect with a cinema/theatre display, the projection plane is so far away that convergence/focal distance disparity is not anywhere near as significant.
 
Short answer no. Since not everyone's eye's are the same distance apart. Especially going from child to adult.

At least with VR headsets you can usually adjust each eye to try to approximate RL, you can't do that with movies.

And even with that extended use of VR can be hugely disorienting then coming back to the "real" world.

Regards,
SB

So does that mean that the ideal 3D experience is an OLED display on the inside of a pair of VR glasses which you can adjust until say a pair of dots on either lens converge in your vision?

So in reality, if you're wearing $50 3D glasses to watch a $1000 TV you may as well buy a $200 pair of glasses and keep your old TV? This is what I don't understand, if you're wearing glasses anyway, why do you need the TV?
 
VR goggles have much higher refresh requirements than static stereoscopic displays ... lag will screw with your senses.
 
So does that mean that the ideal 3D experience is an OLED display on the inside of a pair of VR glasses which you can adjust until say a pair of dots on either lens converge in your vision?

So in reality, if you're wearing $50 3D glasses to watch a $1000 TV you may as well buy a $200 pair of glasses and keep your old TV? This is what I don't understand, if you're wearing glasses anyway, why do you need the TV?

High res VR glasses are EXPENSIVE, or at least they were the last time I seriously evaluated them. And by high res I mean anything higher than 800x600.

Most of the budget glasses at the time (less than 400 USD) were 320x240 displays. No clue how much they are now days. I gave up on them a few years ago. Too many problems with comfort and disorientation after prolonged use when going back to the real world.

The ideal 3D experience would be a holographic display projected into real space, but that isn't happening anytime soon.

Short of that, there's pro's and con's for pretty much every system.

Throw in viewpoint movement within the scene and there can be a rather significant time to re-adjust to normal viewing and movement in the real world if you have used a virtual 3D display for a long period of time.

Regards,
SB
 
IIRC from a lecture "The Forgotten Cue" by Kurt Akeley at Graphics Hardware 2003, the biggest problem with standard HMD with close objects is that the brain expects to have to change the focal distance of the eye to match the convergence angle of the eyes. Standard HMDs will have a fixed and relatively close focal distance.

To test this they built what Akeley described as a "Display mounted head" that had 3x2 displays with each pair of displays at increasing distances and the views combined optically with half-silvered mirrors. An object at depth "Z" would be rendered, with appropriate blending, into the best matching display or pair of displays.

I suspect with a cinema/theatre display, the projection plane is so far away that convergence/focal distance disparity is not anywhere near as significant.

Aye, I can see where a cinema will alleviate that problem somewhat. And with short viewing stints once a week, many of the other issues won't be all that serious.

Regards,
SB
 
As a general rule you shouldn't be doing too much of one thing anyway. Takes me a moment and only rarely to adjust when I've been laying in bed too long or sitting in my chair all day long on the PC. Or when I'm riding rollercoasters at amusement parks. Also if you find those things that annoying be sure not to go from a bright room to a dark room as it'll take the cones in your eyes a moment to adjust!

Not that I think there is an issue with heavy use but I wonder how many will continue heavy use of 3D after the gee whiz factor wears off considering you have to put on glasses each time. Just like the Wii and how people significantly lower their usage after the wow factor of motion controls wears off.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I played way too many 3d games during my developmental adolescent years and I've always thought it had something to do with my slight binocular dysphoria that I now have. I got in an argument with an optometrist once because he insisted on putting slight prisms into my script and I told him I didn't want my depth perception being messed with anymore. I'm glad to see someone else finally using common sense and realizing that the brain can be 'trained' to ignore certain depth cues with enough practice. On the downside I don't get to play many games anymore, the upside of this is my dysphoria has been getting better and better even back to perfect most days now. A little re-training works wonders. =)
 
Aren't you just talking about double vision?

It seems to me that binocular dysphoria is meant to describe a rather subtle effect, something which you can test for in hand eye coordination tests but not something you would notice simply by sight.
 
This is why I've also been thinking that with 3D video games that also have head and perhaps even eye tracking, like we could get to see with PS3 games in the near future, that's going to cover by far the most of 3D perception that we generally rely on.

I play NFS:Shift on PC with 3DVision and a TrackIR. It's extremely good. Shame I don't have (or know of) more games that support both well.
 
Biggest problem


Is that 3D movie does not respond to always present tiny eye movements. This will train our eyes to stay still. However, this is for a small fraction of our awake time (so not so much impact on total eye use period) so unless you are an evil parent who puts children in front of parent all day or lazy couch potato who lives in frnt of the tv instead of getting girlfriends, this is not a problem.
 
Kids tend to stay infront of TV for horus each day, or console/PC. I am sure there are studies about how kids and adults spend their time. That said I wouldn't even touch games like KZ3 which has lower resolution for 3D with a 20 foot long pole. 3D, PS2 bluriness and serious eye fatigue? No thank you, aint a fanatic enough to damage my eyes. You only got 2 eyes.
 
Back
Top