In general, techniques are described for determining a vision-based quality metric for three-dimensional (3D) video. A device (12, 14) comprising a 3D analysis unit (24, 48) may implement these techniques to compute a 3D objective metric (36, 60). The 3D analysis unit (24, 48) estimates an ideal depth map (62, 70) that would generate a distortion limited image view using DIBR-based 3D video data (34) and then derives one or more distortion metrics (64, 72) based on quantitative comparison of the ideal depth map (62, 70) and a depth map (28, 58) used in the generation of the DIBR-based 3D video data (34). Based on the derived one or more distortion metrics (64, 72), the 3D analysis unit (24, 48) computes the objective metric (36, 60) to quantify visual quality of DIBR-based video data (34). The 3D objective metric (36, 60) may be used to alter or otherwise adjust depth estimation and encoding/decoding parameters to correct for expected visual discomfort.