Limiting the Disparity in Stereoscopic Films to ensure a Comfortable Viewing Experience

In the last years, an ongoing trend of producing stereoscopic movies can be observed. While they hold some advantages like stronger immersion, also side effects like visual fatigue were reported. One of the reasons for this is the vergence-accomodation conflict, which describes the unnatural uncoupling of vergence and accomodation that audiences of stereoscopic films are forced to do. As this conflict only causes symptoms at excessive discrepancies, filmmakers should keep the stereoscopic disparity in their films below a certain level. However, there is no consensus on what level that limit should be, so a general guideline is needed. By investigating the findings of different authors and analysing the disparity values of five stereoscopic feature films, a recommendation to limit the disparity of theatrical films to a value of 3% in negative space and 2% in positive space is given.