A Comprehensive Taxonomy for Three-dimensional Displays Waldir Pimenta1 Departamento de Inform´atica Universidade do Minho Braga, Portugal
[email protected] Abstract. Even though three-dimensional (3D) displays have been in- troduced in relatively recent times in the context of display technology, they have undergone a rapid evolution, to the point that equipment able to reproduce three-dimensional, dynamic scenes in real time are now becoming commonplace in the consumer market. This paper presents an approach to (1) provide a clear definition of a 3D display, based on implementation of visual depth cues, and (2) specify a hierarchy of types and subtypes of 3D displays, based on a set of properties that allow an unambiguous classification scheme for three- dimensional displays. Based on this approach, three main classes of 3D display systems are proposed {screen-based, head-mounted displays and volumetric displays{ along with corresponding subtypes, aiming to provide a field map for the area of three-dimensional displays that is clear, comprehensive and expandable. Keywords three-dimensional displays, depth cues, 3D vision, survey 1 Introduction The human ability for abstraction, and the strong dependence on visual infor- mation in the human brain's perception of the external world, have led to the emergence of visual representations (that is, virtual copies) of objects, scenery and concepts, since pre-historical times. Throughout the centuries, many tech- niques have been developed to increase the realism of these copies. At first, this focused on improving their visual appearance and durability, through better pigments, perspective theory, increasingly complex tools to as- sist the recreation process, and even mechanical ways to perform this recreation (initially with heavy manual intervention but gradually becoming more auto- matic).