Assessing stereo blindness and stereo acuity on digital displays

Previous studies on stereoscopic acuity have shown that the percentage of stereo blind subjects is relevant. Moreover, stereoscopic visualization is becoming widely diffused in different fields, like, e.g., entertainment, surgery or VR training, where it is necessary an accurate assessment of stereoscopic abilities of the involved subjects. Therefore, there might be the need of performing a stereo blindness and stereo acuity test before each visualization session involving stereoscopic images. In this paper, we propose a method to assess stereo acuity and stereo blindness directly on the chosen device, under the same visualization condition and setup adopted for the tasks to perform, in order to have the same perceptual response. We present software-based tests suitable for a generic stereoscopic displays, and we compare their effectiveness performing a comparison with a standard physical, card-based, test commonly used in assessment of stereo acuity and stereo blindness. We provide to the reader all the details to perform autonomously the tests, of which images will be downloadable from web. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.