How effective are 3D display modes?

The increasingavailability of 3D input and output devices demands a better understanding and comparison of their quality. This report describes an empirical experiment for comparing 3D display modes: traditional perspective viewing, anaglyph stereo and shutter glass stereo. We followed two hypotheses 1. shutter glass stereo viewing allows a faster and more accurate recognition than the anaglyph and the perspective viewing, and 2. subjects experienced with particular 3D representationsare faster and more accurate than subjects without experience. The experiment is based on a true research scenario in organicchemistry.Organic molecules were used as 3D objects.Mean response error and mean response time were calculated for a series of six tasks and 81 subjects.