The measurement of eyestrain caused from diverse binocular disparities, viewing time and display sizes in watching stereoscopic 3D content

The measurement of eyestrain caused by watching stereoscopic 3D content is very important in producing 3D movies and 3D TV content that may be comfortably watched by the viewer. Some research has been done regarding comparative measurements of eyestrain between 2D and 3D video. However, what has not been explored sufficiently is the eyestrain caused by variations in binocular disparity, viewing time and display size in watching stereoscopic 3D video. In this paper, we quantified viewer discomfort by measuring eye blinking rates using an eye tracker system, and then estimated the user´s eyestrain by integrating the eye blinking rates with user´s subjective test responses when watching stereoscopic 3D content in relation to binocular disparity, viewing time and display size. As might have been expected, the experimental results show that eyestrain increases as the binocular disparity and viewing time increase. We also find that the viewer´s eyestrain caused from watching stereoscopic 3D content on small displays is higher than with larger displays.