An optical see-through multi-focal-plane stereoscopic display prototype enabling nearly-correct focus cues

Conventional stereoscopic displays render 3D scenes from a single pair of 2D images at a fixed distance to the viewer. Therefore conventional stereoscopic displays force an unnatural decoupling of the accommodation and convergence cues, which may contribute to various visual artifacts and have significant effects on depth perception accuracy. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of an optical see-through depth-fused multi-focal-plane binocular stereoscopic display. The prototype is capable of rendering nearly-correct focus cues for a large volume of 3D objects extending into a depth range from 0 to 3 diopters and a diagonal field of view of 40 degrees at a flicker-free speed. With the optimized optical system including a freeform prism eyepiece and a see-through compensator, the prototype system demonstrates high image quality while having minimal degradation to the see-through view.