<title>Controlling perceived depth in stereoscopic images</title>

Stereoscopic images are hard to get right, and comfortable images are often only produced after repeated trial and error. The main difficulty is controlling the stereoscopic camera parameters so that the viewer does not experience eye strain or double images from excessive perceived depth. Additionally, for head tracked displays, the perceived objects can distort as the viewer moves to look around the displayed scene. We describe a novel method for calculating stereoscopic camera parameters with the following contributions: (1) Provides the user intuitive controls related to easily measured physical values. (2) For head tracked displays; necessarily ensures that there is no depth distortion as the viewer moves. (3) Clearly separates the image capture camera/scene space from the image viewing viewer/display space. (4) Provides a transformation between these two spaces allowing precise control of the mapping of scene depth to perceived display depth. The new method is implemented as an API extension for use with OpenGL, a plug-in for 3D Studio Max and a control system for a stereoscopic digital camera. The result is stereoscopic images generated correctly at the first attempt, with precisely controlled perceived depth. A new analysis of the distortions introduced by different camera parameters was undertaken.