Understanding Crosstalk in Stereoscopic Displays

Crosstalk is a critical factor determining the image quality of stereoscopic displays. Also known as ghosting or leakage, high levels of crosstalk can make stereoscopic images hard to fuse and lack fidelity; hence it is important to achieve low levels of crosstalk in the development of high-quality stereoscopic displays. In the wider academic literature, the terms crosstalk, ghosting and leakage are often used interchangeably but it would be helpful to have unambiguous descriptive and mathematical definitions of these terms. The paper reviews a wide range of mechanisms by which crosstalk occurs in various stereoscopic displays, including: time-sequential on PDPs and CRTs (phosphor afterglow, shutter timing, shutter efficiency), MicroPol LCDs (polarization quality, viewing angle), time-sequential on LCDs (pixel response rate, update method, shutter timing & efficiency), autostereoscopic (inter-zone crosstalk), polarised projection (quality of polarisers and screens), anaglyph (spectral quality of glasses and displays). Crosstalk reduction and crosstalk cancellation are also discussed along with methods of measuring and characterising crosstalk.