Evaluation of monoscopic and stereoscopic displays for visual–spatial tasks in medical contexts

• Controlled visual experiments were used to examine performance on 3D spatial tasks.
• We examine the effects of stereopsis in medical spatial tasks.
• Stereopsis significantly effects spatial task performance in specific ranges.
• Color did not affect the performance of participants.
• Orientation of the 3D representation influenced the effect of steropsis.

In the medical field, digital images are present in diagnosis, pre-operative planning, minimally invasive surgery, instruction, and training. The use of medical digital imaging has afforded new ways to interact with a patient, such as seeing fine details inside a body. This increased usage also raises many basic research questions on human perception and performance when utilizing these images. The work presented here attempts to answer the question: How would adding the stereopsis depth cue affect relative position tasks in a medical context compared to a monoscopic view? By designing and conducting a study to isolate the benefits between monoscopic 3D and stereoscopic 3D displays in a relative position task, the following hypothesis was tested: stereoscopic 3D displays are beneficial over monoscopic 3D displays for relative position judgment tasks in a medical visualization setting. 44 medical students completed a series of relative position judgments tasks. The results show that stereoscopic condition yielded a higher score than the monoscopic condition with regard to the hypothesis.