Temporal presentation protocols in stereoscopic displays: Flicker visibility, perceived motion, and perceived depth

Most stereoscopic displays rely on field-sequential presentation to present different images to the left and right eyes. With sequential presentation, images are delivered to each eye in alternation with dark intervals, and each eye receives its images in counter phase with the other eye. This type of presentation can exacerbate image artifacts including flicker, and the appearance of unsmooth motion. To address the flicker problem, some methods repeat images multiple times before updating to new ones. This greatly reduces flicker visibility, but makes motion appear less smooth. This paper describes an investigation of how different presentation methods affect the visibility of flicker, motion artifacts, and distortions in perceived depth. It begins with an examination of these methods in the spatio-temporal frequency domain. From this examination, it describes a series of predictions for how presentation rate, object speed, simultaneity of image delivery to the two eyes, and other properties ought to affect flicker, motion artifacts, and depth distortions, and reports a series of experiments that tested these predictions. The results confirmed essentially all of the predictions. The paper concludes with a summary and series of recommendations for the best approach to minimize these undesirable effects.