1998 Volume 34 Issue 2 Pages 166-174
The head mounted display (HMD) is widely used in the virtual reality technology. In previous studies, however, disparity of HMD is set as a uniform value in the whole view field. In such HMD systems, many problems will occur to develop a new HMD with wide view. In this study, in order to realize a natural stereo sensation of HMD with wide view, the authors measure the characteristics of binocular stereo perception and binocular lightness perception. The results of measurement suggest that both of the binocular stereoacuity and binocular lightness sensitivity decrease as the eccentricity increases from fovea to periphery of the retina. However, the decrease of binocular stereoacuity is more rapid than the binocular lightness sensitivity. This results suggest that the binocular disparity at the peripheral field should be small. Conversely, if we set a large binocular disparity at the peripheral field, we can see double images instead of a stereo view. In order to set proper binocular disparity to design a HMD with wide view, the authors analyze the results of measurements and reveal a model of binocular perceptual characteristics. Furthermore, a new method to set a proper disparity pattern for whole view is proposed. In the proposed method of disparity setting, the binocular disparity weight window shifts in the wide view corresponding to the eye movement to set proper values of disparity.
