The Ergonomics of Interactive and Stereoscopic 3D Product Models for Design Education

Abstract: Recently, some research groups had tried to use the technologies of stereoscopic 3D displays to present teaching materials for product design education. However, the issue of visual discomfort for viewing stereoscopic 3D contents was not considered. To conduct experiments, representative 3D virtual models of office furniture were constructed with simple shapes and textures. These models were displayed on a 50-inch stereoscopic 3D TV and viewed through passive polarizing glasses. The task was to walk through a virtual office and identify the design problems of furniture. Thirty students, majored in Industrial Design, were invited to participate in these experiments. The number of design problems identified was considered as the major performance measure. In addition, total time spent in stereoscopic 3D mode or traditional 3D mode, degree of discomfort, and self-reported symptoms were collected. The result showed that although stereoscopic 3D images had advantages over traditional 3D images for the task of dimension and distance estimations, the degree of visual discomfort increased significantly while the participants were interacting with the virtual product components intensively. The result indicated that adaptive adjustments of binocular and monocular depth cues were necessary for highly interactive tasks to ensure visual comfort and depth cue integration.

Keywords: Product Design Education, Stereoscopic 3D Virtual Model, Visual Depth Cues

DOI: 10.54941/1009

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