Comparison of stereoscopic and nonstereoscopic video images for visual telephone systems
Wa James Tam, André Vincent, Ronald Renaud, Phil Blanchfield, Taali Martin · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2003
Possible differences in perceptual qualities between stereoscopic and non-stereoscopic images were investigated using a field-sequential stereoscopic display. A total of forty non-expert viewers were asked to rate overall image quality, sharpness and sense of presence using the double-stimulus continuous quality scale (ITU-R Recommendation 500). Viewers rated a set of five video sequences (stereoscopic and non-stereoscopic) each presented at four levels of image quality that were obtained by varying the quantization level (Q=0, 32, 36, and 39) of a generic H.264 video compression codec. Each sequence was 8 seconds long at 30 frames per second and the spatial resolution of each frame was common image format (CIF, 352 x 240 pixels). Image size was 15.5 cm x 11.6 cm and scene contents were representative of visual telephone systems with one, two or three individuals. The experimental results showed that viewers' ratings depended on the sequences and that there was no reliable difference between stereoscopic and non-stereoscopic sequences in terms of image quality and perceived sharpness. However, binocular disparity tended to improve ratings of sense of presence. We conclude that incorporating stereoscopic information into visual telephone systems can be useful for enhancing sense of presence.