That is the question we set out to solve in our study whose results were published earlier this month in Springer’s journal 3D Research. The obvious reason is the chicken and egg problem: people do not have stereoscopic 3D displays. But what if they had? We gave five novice participants 3D cameras and displays for four weeks and let them use the cameras as they liked.

The participants took a total of 699 photographs during the trial. Each week, they answered a series of questions, evaluated their attitudes towards the photography, and chose the best and worst photographs. After the trial we conducted a thorough exit interview with each participant individually. In addition to the participants’ responses, we analysed the photographs by computing the disparity maps by matching the local features (SIFT) in the stereo pairs.

Turns out that the participants encountered several problems during the experiment. The main problem was that they took photographs at too close distances in the beginning of the trial. The distance between the lenses in the camera used in this trial was 7.5cm, which creates too large disparities in the photographs taken at normal indoors conditions. Photographs with excess disparity are extremely unpleasant to look at, and in a real use situation the initial disappointment would likely have led to the camera gathering dust on a shelf. The participants did, however, learn to avoid the excess disparities. They also commented that people in the photographs looked unnatural. Other issues were caused by the camera flash and objects at the edges of the photograph. Check out the full article for further details. Thanks to Nokia Research Center for collaboration in this project.