We demonstrate that the binocular perspective disparity generated by an interocular separation that is only a few percent of the nominal 65 mm human interocular separation is still enough to stimulate depth perception. This perception, which we call microstereopsis, has a 'kinder gentler' character than the stark and stressful stimulus presented by geometrically correct virtual reality displays. Microstereopsis stimulates 'just enough reality:' enough to resolve the depth ambiguity in flat images, but not so much reality that it hurts. We observe that whereas crosstalk between left and right image channels is normally perceived as ghosting, with microstereopsis it is perceived as blur in the foreground and background. Since ghosting is objectionable, whereas blur that looks like depth-of-focus in not objectionable, this relaxes the requirement for a high contrast ratio between on and off states of the stereo view multiplexer. This relaxation in turn suggest possibilities for zoneless autostereoscopic displays. We propose a realization based on an electronically toggled louvre filter using suspended particle display technology.
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