How is convergance plane distance used in side-by-side stereo 3D?

Question

I found that the convergence plane distance is extremely important to Anaglyph 3D rendering, in terms of how the result looks. However, I created this blend file at pasteall in order test it for google cardboard, and I rendered the file in side-by-side mode (be warned it will still preview in anaglyph mode) and it appears to have very very little effect on the result.

As you can see there are keyframes placed on the plane; render it as a video with blender render.

How, exactly, and I supposed to use this plane for normal color side-by-side rendering? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

From what I know now, the convergence plane distance is the distance between the projector and the image being projected as written in blender. In fact for the anaglyph preview you can change it by clicking on the window tab/3d view and select side-by-side.

This setting seems to be used if you have some headset display. If you type the N key and go to Stereoscopy you can choose Left/Right or 3D that shows both. Now the interocular distance is the actual distance between the cameras as shown in the print screen.

Blue and red represents both cameras and the darker rectangle is the convergence plane distance

A setting that Blender suggest is the convergence plane distance/30 for the interocular distance.

Source: http://blender.org/manual/fr/render/workflows/multiview/usage.html

Answer 2

Convergence plane in blender is what you can call as screen. The objects between camera and this plane pop out of screen while the objects on opposite side are at a depth. The objects exactly at convergence plane are formed at screen.