Interscopic Interaction Concepts

Fish-tank (semi-immersive) virtual reality desktop environments based on autostereoscopic display technologies allow users to view stereoscopic content without requiring special glasses. Autostereoscopic display technologies have achieved significant improvements over the past years, and now become interesting not only to professionals in fields such as medicine or architecture, but also to gamers.

Illustration of the Sim2D3D project: Simultaneous mono- and stereoscopic display on
autostereoscopic displays. (upper row) Stereoscopic Google Earth views in windows of a
 monoscopically displayed Desktop environment, and (bottom) illustration of the
interscopic combination process of mono- and stereoscopic information.

In this project we developed a software solution for simultaneous display of mono- and stereoscopic content on autostereoscopic displays. On current autostereoscopic displays users can view stereoscopic content without having to wear special glasses. Until now it was not possible to display monoscopic and stereoscopic content simultaneously on a single autostereoscopic display. Simultaneous viewing was possible only by using an additional "regular" display for the monoscopic content.

Sim2D3D enables simultaneous viewing of monoscopic and stereoscopic content. Arbitrary applications can be displayed on an autostereoscopic display; 3D content can be rendered stereoscopically whereas 2D GUI elements are displayed monoscopically. In particular, Sim2D3D is independent from the technology which is used to generate the stereoscopic display. Sim2D3D can be integrated into all common operating systems. Sim2D3D renders a 2D-monitor in addition to the 3D-monitor unnecessary.

In the course of the Sim2D3D project, we have introduced so-called interscopic interaction concepts which provide an improved working experience, and have great potential in terms of the interaction between 2D elements, which may be displayed either monoscopically or stereoscopically, e.g., GUI items, and 3D virtual environments that are usually displayed stereoscopically.

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