I'm stereoblind[1], and had the chance to try out an Oculus Rift a few weeks ago. It's neat, but it's more like a viewmaster or a 3d film than it is "Seeing actual depth." The Rift was pretty cool, even as low-fi as it was. And experiencing simulation sickness, while pretty unpleasant, was also kind of wild. (Stick to simulations that put you in vehicles - avoid Half-Life 2)
Here comes the footnote:
[1] I only really discovered that I was stereoblind in 2006 (age 26), with the release of the album "10,000 Days" by Tool, which comes in stereo-optical packaging. Folks online were raving about the three dimensional artwork packaging, but for me, I had trouble seeing it. Whereas it seems people with normal vision can see the depth right away, it took me minutes of staring through the lenses in the packaging to see the depth of the (admittedly cheesy) artwork and photography.
I spent at least an hour going through that, and when I looked away, I had kind of a Wizard of Oz Color Television moment. I could see depth. Like, holy shit, I can see depth. I remember I just stared at a crumpled plastic bag on the floor.
The effect wore off, although sometimes manifested itself in odd places - particularly in an antique mirror we had kicking around. Looking in the mirror, I could see depth again. When I'm looking at vast expanses - a side-of-the-road scenic view off an Arizona highway - I can muster 'depth' again.
I later heard a report on NPR about how in some cases, depth perception can be re-learned, despite contemporary theories that if you don't learn depth perception by age eight (or so), the neural pathways will never form. In the radio program, the doctor exploring this gave his patients a string lined with beads several inches apart. Tie the string next to your bed, attached to the wall, for example. When you are going to or getting up from bed, pick up that string and hold it taught, and focus for x seconds/minutes on each bead.
Or get a copy of 10,000 Days by Tool and stare at it for an hour or two.
It really blew my mind, seeing actual depth in full clarity that first time. Upon further reflection, it made sense to me that my stereoblindness was why I was terrible at a sport like baseball, but not so bad at soccer, and why with first person shooters, I excelled where others instead got motion sickness. I can see with both eyes, but it's like my brain is using a less efficient algorithm to translate the signals into X/Y/Z. With large, far away things, it's easy. With a small object moving quickly in my direction, not so much.
One of the things to look into are eyes that are grossly disproportionate (like your prescription varies strongly from one eye to the other) When I was young I had a 'wandering eye' which was corrected surgically, but that left me with such a disparity in capability and a diminished depth perception.
Suddenly, I'm very glad that I got into the eye doctor as early as I did; my right eye is dramatically worse than my left, but I guess that I got glasses early enough to prevent something like this from happening.
Here comes the footnote:
[1] I only really discovered that I was stereoblind in 2006 (age 26), with the release of the album "10,000 Days" by Tool, which comes in stereo-optical packaging. Folks online were raving about the three dimensional artwork packaging, but for me, I had trouble seeing it. Whereas it seems people with normal vision can see the depth right away, it took me minutes of staring through the lenses in the packaging to see the depth of the (admittedly cheesy) artwork and photography.
I spent at least an hour going through that, and when I looked away, I had kind of a Wizard of Oz Color Television moment. I could see depth. Like, holy shit, I can see depth. I remember I just stared at a crumpled plastic bag on the floor.
The effect wore off, although sometimes manifested itself in odd places - particularly in an antique mirror we had kicking around. Looking in the mirror, I could see depth again. When I'm looking at vast expanses - a side-of-the-road scenic view off an Arizona highway - I can muster 'depth' again.
I later heard a report on NPR about how in some cases, depth perception can be re-learned, despite contemporary theories that if you don't learn depth perception by age eight (or so), the neural pathways will never form. In the radio program, the doctor exploring this gave his patients a string lined with beads several inches apart. Tie the string next to your bed, attached to the wall, for example. When you are going to or getting up from bed, pick up that string and hold it taught, and focus for x seconds/minutes on each bead.
Or get a copy of 10,000 Days by Tool and stare at it for an hour or two.
It really blew my mind, seeing actual depth in full clarity that first time. Upon further reflection, it made sense to me that my stereoblindness was why I was terrible at a sport like baseball, but not so bad at soccer, and why with first person shooters, I excelled where others instead got motion sickness. I can see with both eyes, but it's like my brain is using a less efficient algorithm to translate the signals into X/Y/Z. With large, far away things, it's easy. With a small object moving quickly in my direction, not so much.