Quantifying perceptual resolution for autostereoscopic three‐dimensional displays

The perceptual experience issue is particularly important for autostereoscopic three‐dimensional (3D) displays since the perceptual resolution has a great correlation between panel resolution and other 3D display performances, but normally used effective resolution only considers the amount of information being sent to a certain viewing point. This work describes that the visual factors should be taken into consideration associated with resolution and contrast simultaneously to evaluate perceptual 3D resolution. We propose a quantitative evaluation of perceptual resolution of 3D displays from modulated contrast based on the contrast sensitivity function (CSF). A switchable parallax‐barrier display and a directional backlight display providing glasses‐free autostereoscopic vision are experimentally studied to verify the validity of the characterization. Due to the nonlinear response of the CSF threshold curve, less than 50% of the panel resolution in parallax‐barrier 3D displays is perceived, while the display with directional backlight illumination is shown to retain the panel resolution for perceptual experience as expected. We foresee that this study provides a practically objective paradigm to characterize the subjective perceptual resolution and the presented perceptual resolution can be served as a design guideline to achieve an improved 3D viewing experience. Visual factors should be taken into consideration to evaluate perceptual resolution for 3D displays. A practically objective paradigm to quantitatively characterize the such subjective factor is based on the contrast sensitivity function (CSF). The presented perceptual resolution can be served as a design guideline to achieve improved 3D viewing experience.