How best can new 3-D pseudo-holographic displays be evaluated?

Criteria established for 2-D monitors and earlier autostereoscopic devices, although valid, provide little or no indication of the immediacy and responsiveness of the stereoscopic and motion-parallax cues available to the observer - free to move both head and body - in front of the display, such as Holografika's large-screen, computer-controlled, multi-projector video system (developed under the EU Project COHERENT-IST-FP6-510166).

Here we present two perceptual tests designed to complement the large set of electro-optical evaluation/calibration tests also being applied to the device. The first test invokes variants of Julesz's spiral-staircase random-dot stereogram to demonstrate that even under adverse conditions binocular fusion is rapid.

The second test reverses the logic of the Pulfrich Pendulum illusion to assess motion-in-depth cues - avoiding various technological pitfalls. By darkening a variable-density filter worn over one eye, the observer is asked to annul the motion-in-depth of a the bob rendered by the display to follow a horizontal circular trajectory in depth. The screen is well calibrated if approximately the same darkening is required by the observer at all view-points in front of the screen.

We report the design and initial results of both tests.