[Stratoscope]

In a way, stereoscopic 3D is seeing something "flat and floating in space at a set distance". The focus distance is the same for both your eyes, and the same for anything you look at.

In the real world, your eyes refocus for objects at different distances. It's not just a "stereoscopic effect". The actual focus distance - what's blurry and what's not blurry - changes.

This doesn't happen with devices like the Rift or a 3D movie screen. Your eyes may have to swivel in and out to align the images, but they don't have to refocus.

Very different from the real world!

[danielbln]

I think John Carmack on one of the Oculus panels was pondering, if infinite focus isn't actually an improvement over having to converge all the times. From any other mouth I'd take that as trying to rationalize a flaw of the display tech that Oculus is currently using, but Carmack isn't really known to do that. I'd like to compare regular infinite focus tech with something like light fields, and see if it improves presence. If it doesn't improve on presence or immersion significantly, then I'd rather have relaxing infinite focus I think.

[nyolfen]

"Your eyes may have to swivel in and out to align the images, but they don't have to refocus."

how is this different from refocusing?

[afro88]

When your eyes look at an object in 3D space, they not only swivel so both are looking at it at the same time (convergence), but your eye muscles manipulate the lenses so the object is clear and not blurry (focus). Think of how a camera focusses it's lens to bring an object into clear sharp view.

So in the case of the Oculus, the lenses in your eyes remain focussed on the images on the screens right in front of you, rather than changing depending on how far away the object is in the virtual scene. So there's a disparity there that causes your brain to go wtf and stops it from fully accepting what it's seeing as real.

[Stratoscope]

One way to think of it: When you take a picture with a camera, different objects in the photo may be in or out of focus, depending on how far away from the camera they are.

Closer objects may be sharp and distant objects blurry, or vice versa. Or somewhere in between.

Of course you can aim the camera one direction or another to choose its field of view - which objects appear in the frame and where - but that's completely separate from which of those objects in focus.

Focusing is one thing, aiming the camera is another.

And that doesn't change at all when you have two cameras. You can aim them both at the same thing, you can aim them off into the distance, but you still have to focus them both.

[cheepin]

When I look at something far away, close things are out of focus. When I look at close things, distance is out of focus. When I watch a 3D movie, I just align the glasses and things are focused according to the camera that shot it.