Ray Maguire: No Health Issues With 3D For Young Children

Written by Connor Beaton, published 25th August 2010

Ray Maguire, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe spoke on the subject of 3D in the film, video games and music industries at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival this morning, explaining the way in which Sony’s LCD shutter glasses work and the uses of 3D within the industry.

However, one of Maguire’s more interesting statements during his talk was that despite Sega’s investigation which returned the contrary, there were no negative health effects to children viewing stereoscopic 3D video or games. The only issue with young children using Sony’s new 3D tech addressed were in the growth of the inter-axial distance, which represents the distance between your eyeballs and therefore the distance between the two cameras (or virtual cameras in terms of gaming).

This value is typically 65mm in an average person, but can be smaller in a young child, making it almost impossible for very young children to use 3D. Increasing the camera distance beyond 65mm will make objects closer to the camera appear closer to the viewer, although increasing this value to much will break the 3D effect since closer objects on the screen will not become bigger, causing distortion.