Angle perception on autostereoscopic displays

Previous studies of depth and distance estimation with autostereoscopic 3D displays indicate the users do not necessarily exhibit better depth perception with such displays. Yet, users claim 3D displays provide higher immersiveness. As shapes of objects are often described by their angles, it is expected that angle perception would contribute to object recognition and scene understanding. However; angle perception studies on stereoscopic displays are not available. Angle estimation accuracy with autostereoscopic 3D displays is investigated in this study. An experiment is conducted using an autostereoscopic 3D display. Forty people participated in the experiment. They were asked to estimate the vertex angle and draw the projections of the object from two different viewpoints. It is found that users can better estimate the angles on a cone when viewed from the top on an autostereoscopic display compared to a 2D display. In addition, the users were asked to estimate the vertex angles of Real cones. They were more accurate in Real than the virtual environment. These findings for 3D objects are compared to previous studies with 2D objects in the literature.