Stereopsis (from the
Greek στερεο- meaning "solid", and
opsis, "appearance,
sight") is a term that is most often used to refer to the perception of depth and 3-dimensional structure obtained on the basis of visual information deriving from two eyes by individuals with normally developed
binocular vision. Because the eyes of humans, and many animals, are located at different lateral positions on the head, binocular vision results in two slightly different images projected to the
retinas of the eyes. The differences are mainly in the relative horizontal position of objects in the two images. These positional differences are referred to as
horizontal disparities or, more generally,
binocular disparities. Disparities are processed in the
visual cortex of the brain to yield
depth perception. While binocular disparities are naturally present when viewing a real 3-dimensional scene with two eyes, they can also be simulated by artificially presenting two different images separately to each eye using a method called
stereoscopy. The perception of depth in such cases is also referred to as "stereoscopic depth".