Visual discomfort induced by adjustment of convergence distance in stereoscopic video

More and more stereoscopic film makers have begun to use fully integrated 3D camcorders. These 3D camcorders provide a stable shooting style and enable easy adjustment of the convergence point. In this paper, we analyzed the visual discomfort induced by adjustment of the convergence point in a video scene. We captured outdoor and indoor scenes and conducted a subjective assessment to investigate the degree of visual discomfort caused by the adjustment and the level of difficulty to recognize the variation of depth induced by the adjustment. As results of the subjective assessment, we observed that human eyes could be easily affected by sudden change of convergence point. But slowly gradual variation of convergence point will bring only little visual discomfort and it is really difficult for people to recognize the variation of depth even with rapid adjustment.