Gripe i have with 3D...why many 3D solutions are nonsense

[flexy]

This especially in regards to ALL 3D solutions which "happen" on a standard size monitor or TV, be it CRT or LCD, 22" or 24"

This also includes solutions by Zalman, IZ3D etc...etc...

I ALWAYS as the opinion that one of the most important factors in achieving realism and IMMERSION is the actual FOV and therefore also the size of the display you experience 3D with.

I was testing various methods over the last view days on my 22", and no matter how well 3D works or not.....the overall impression is "meh". The reason is that a 22" or 24" display is just to SMALL to even come close to things like "immersion" or "realism".

Playing WoW on my 22" i can only compare it in realism to a museum where you go and see one of those glass-vitrines/cases with some miniature-model setting inside.
Or "fish-tank" effect.

Yes...it's 3D. But its more like playing with a doll-house, or looking in one of those glass-cases at an exhibition.

I know, the 3D effect can vary, depending on drivers. I did some testing. Some allow to actually "pull out" object of the screen and give you a pretty "ok" 3D effect..which is NOT limited to the plane (and behind) of your screen. You actually get parts of the scenery extending towards you, from the monitor. Some drivers/game rather limit you to this "fish-tank" effect which is not too realistic.
Playing WoW i mostly had the subjective impression i played with barbies - since (depending on 3d Settings) my characters seemed to be 15" or so big

Ever since i saw my first IMAX 3D movie i am 100% convinced that the BIGGEST part of realism is achieved by

() a BIG, screen/field of view. In a perfect world even in the shape of a half/globe. See IMAX.
() In addition, 3D.

If you use 3D on a 19",22" even 24" monitor it is just a halfa$$ story, this includes all solutions, planar, shutter, etc....but also VR sets with small FOVs.

FIRST the FOV must be big, immersing you in a 2D world.
Then add 3D perfecting it. Forget all "fish tank" solutions.

G.

Edit: I am not all negative, i can see the potential. The impressions sometimes varied (within the same game), depending on the scene. Some moments were very breathtaking....sometimes the effect was rather "bleh". I was only able to test using anaglyph , so this added some more negative effects. I can see the potential - i hope that my planned solution (50" Samsung "3d Ready" display + shutters) is better what i had when i tested w/ anagyph. I think the size and FOV plays a big role. I hope the 50" display together with "3d ready" technique will overcome negative effects using anaglyph and small FOV using only a 22" display. Negative effects could be
a) technical
Ghosting, Bad driver implementation, headaches, bad colors, flickering etc...etc..
b) subjective
"playing with barbie" experience

[Mong]

Phew!! I though I was the only one that played with Barbie Dolls!

I respect your opinion flexy and I too have been questioning the 3D limitations we have to put up with but, from my perspective the IMAX 3D experience is exactly the same with your CRT & ShutterGlasses!!

The ONLY difference (IMO by the way) is the 3D Scale which is a massive difference between the two....but when I compare the current 3D technology with my late 80s experience with Holographic gaming at the arcade (which is truly an AMAZING) I ask myself why did'nt we use Holograms instead of glassed off 3D?

Anyway I'm interested in what others have to say about the their Barbie Dolls and maybe we can swap urrr.....o-or something.


Later Dude.

[Freke1]

Yes, we have Surround Sound now is the time for Surround graphics, I agree.

The games have to be designed to it however showing more of the gameworld.
If You stand 10m from a soldier in the gameworld and sit 0,3m from Your monitor he should be:
1,8m / 10m * 0,3m = 0.054m high on Your monitor
no matter how big Your monitor is. Then he won't look like a MONSTER soldier or a toy soldier.

In a FPS like Battlefield 2 this means it would look most correctly with a 25-26" monitor.
In other games You can adjust the FOV ingame which helps.

It would be nice with a dome type monitor like:
http://www.playerzblog.com/a-cutting-ed ... -dome.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsBln1V8MgI
or something similar or HMD's with 180 degree FOV's.

As a sidenote: To me the magic thing about gaming in 3D is when You adjust it realisticly. Your eyes look hard into the distance
and You don't notice the monitor edges. That gives immersion and it is kind of "magic" trickery. There's a huge difference from
looking a graphics displayed 0,3m away and staring into the distance trying to spot the enemies. My mind tricks my I think. Also the monitor glass totally disappiers. I like these effects a lot.

[Neil]

Hi Flexy!

Let me point you to this thread:

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... c&start=15

It's important to recognize that S-3D was beneficial even back to the days of 15" CRT monitors, and it is only very recently that we are seeing S-3D 22" and bigger LCD panels. I think you will find a lot of passionate gamers on these forums who really enjoy the S-3D effect, and they would have had to see and experience something of great value to think that way.

IMAX is fun, but it is far from necessary for our needs. For me, my first S-3D experience was a 17" CRT monitor with shutters, and that was enough to get me hooked to start MTBS. From the 17" I went to the 19" and then the 22".

Anaglyph is not an effective way to experience stereoscopic 3D. It is not at all a good measuring stick of how S-3D benefits game immersion because the technology is visually distracting and decades out of date. However, let's hear from fellow members and see what their experiences are like.

Regards,
Neil

[flexy]

Mong,

but the size is what it's all about. from that point of view Imax is a HUGE difference, even if the methods are basically the same.

I am, in a nutshell, saying that each 3D method is only halfa$$ as long as the 3D is limited to a rel. small screen, this including 24" displays etc.etc..
I remember in the early 80s, on trade-shows and carnivals they had that globe-like cinemas (WITHOUT 3D)..where you could ride a rollercoaster and similar.
The big advantage the 180 deg full "view"...and then it takes VERY, VERY little to make this a perfect experience by adding real 3D technology on top of the giant screen.

We would probably be surprised what an incredible experience it is, say, you are gaming and you would have a half-dome shape "monitor" in front of you, with you in the middle. Already by the fact that you could "look around" then it would be an incrdible life-like experience. Not even IMAX actually does that (IMHO)...at least not the ones i saw. It must not be that extreme like that...but i think its so important to haev a big screen (real or virtually created by optics!)...PREFERRABLY (again) at such giant size that an object would appear on the screen in real size.
Its virtually impossible eg. to project a "real sized" human when the screen itself is 22" big

I can (with current tech) "simulate" a view, eg. i can simulate the viewig angle and subjective "real size" using 3d technologies, for example the illusion that a person is standing far away on a hill. 3D tech enables me to simulate that angle/view.

If i "move" that virtual person/character closer to the screen towards me soon there is a limit, the whole person is actually "shrinking" since the display limits the "real" size of the character....so, in addition with the 3D effect and simulated, perceived distance it's "wrong" since the size is not right

[flexy]

Yeah Neil,

i am aware of the limitations and distractions of anaglyph. However it enabled me to test drivers and get an idea as long as i dont have better equipment.
But in addition, i was also a bit suprised because i remember anaglyph r/g from MANY years ago...i was surprised since anaglypgh now preserves colors way better than it did years ago..so color preservation was "ok"...and stereo effect was "ok" also. Sometimes stereo was 100% broken, usign NV drivers OR tridef drivers. Eg. playing WoW..i noticed it doesnt do ANY stereo in some scenes, eg. greens like trees or grass.

[Freke1]

I remember seeing a helicopter movie on a big half dome (non 3D) and I tumbled to the ground because of the pilots crazy flying.
Don't they have 3D movies at planetariums (with halfdomes)? I think they have in Copenhagen, Denmark.

[Welder]

I remember seeing a helicopter movie on a big half dome (non 3D) and I tumbled to the ground because of the pilots crazy flying.
Don't they have 3D movies at planetariums (with halfdomes)? I think they have in Copenhagen, Denmark.

They have one in San Diego

[Tril]

I agree that the effect is more impressive on a big screen. The bigger the screen, the bigger the pop-out distance out of the screen is, which makes it more impressive. I tried a dual projector rig in the past. Simply looking at the test app of the old NVIDIA was impressive because the logo would pop-out of the screen and it would look like it was floating a few feet out of the screen. The screen size was about 65".

There's not enough pop-out on a 21" monitor to be impressed with looking at that test app.

Now, I have a VR920. To my eyes, the screen looks like it's a 40" screen located at about 5 feet. It looks less impressive than with the two projectors. I think that it's because my eyes don't have any reference point to know how far the screen depth is so when there's pop-out, it just looks closer than 5 feet.

I once saw a movie about fishes at an IMAX 3D theatre. It was really impressive. That movie was filmed underwater. There were lots of particles floating in the water. This movie was really great because the 3D feel was very big. The particles really looked like they were floating in the room and some of them looked so close that it felt like you could touch them with your hands (I saw some people try to touch them ).

Now that I've tried a 21" CRT monitor with shutter glasses, two HMDs and two projectors with passive filter and passive glasses, I know that the only solution that will really satisfy me will me a big screen and it need to be a real screen (not an HMD). Since it's expensive, I'll make the purchase choice carefully. I don't want a 720p HDTV, I want a 1080p one. Unfortunately, the price gets high fast when you increase the resolution. A 1080p 50" HDTV can be $1000 more expensive than a 720p 50".

[flexy]

thanks for input tril,

interesting your opinion in regards ti the vr920. I also toyed with the idea of a VR920 first, then i thought a Z800 would be cool.

But reading that they only have 40 or so deg FOV and 800x600 resolution seemed it WAY to overprized to me, especially since the Z800 once was sold for $599, then they showed it off at some exhibition...and now they would want 1400 Euro (yes, EU!) for the same thing which was $599 a few years ago. So i passed.

Yes..i would also very much like 1080p, but then this introduces two problems:

w/ the 720p DLPs right now, the gaming resolution is 1360x768 which is pretty "ok" and actually looks nice even on ma 22" where i usually play everything at 1650x

To utilize a 1950x1050 "full hd"...you need to feed it with 1950x resolution, say if you game. First, this is a monster resolution where you need TWO monster cards in SLI/CF to even think about running any game with such a resolution. In addition the fact that if 3d actually works it would have to work twice as much....its already cutting down FPS here a lot in certain games.

So or so...playing 1950xx1050 in Stereo, even with my 8800GTS and 4 cores, all my system heavily overclocked for max perf - still this would be a HUGE problem...not to say impossible in terms of performance. If the 1370x768 resolution gives an "ok" picture and especially an "ok" 3d effect..then this is a good compromise and it would still alllow "ok" speed, for games.

third...availability and price. 750p with "3d ready" is actually reasonable, $1300. I can only speak for EU market, but the 1080p models dont do 3D! The only plasma available with "3d ready" is the model doing 720p. for watching movies etc. (if this is a criterium) i think 720p is more than enough for our needs. 99,9% will be "normal" DVDs anyway.

Add - Re: PopOuts

You can do this also on smaller screen, but yes, screen size is a factor here.
Furthermore, it also depends how a 3D driver is implemented.

In my first tests using anaglyph i am testing iz3d, tridef and nvidia drivers. Some drivers, to a certain point have the option set focus, so you can shift part of the screen "out of the screen". It also depends on the game/app.
I saw that FSX using the NV dirvers didnt feature "popout" at all.

Most impressive was using Tridef drivers, certain scenes in World and Warcraft, or certain anaglyph pictures. Eg. my horse's head is literally coming out the screen I usually adjust it that things where i am "close" are "coming out" of the screen, since i, as the human player sit BEHIND the monitor. But if i stand near a bush or something, the object should be close to me.

But this also introduces problems again...as i posted...if i pull out objects they begin to shrink...since the eye *thinks* they are closer now...and if the size is not right then objects look smaller than what they're supposed to be.

A bigger screen now allows to "pull out" objects and keep their (perceived) real size.

I try to "explain" this (as i understand it) in simple terms....

If you put your hand close to your face, your hand covers almost all your FOV.

Now imagine a real tiny screen, say a 14" monitor which is a few feet in front of you. Even if the monitor "in reality" is of course a little bigger than a hand, it cannot "project" the illusion of the hand 1 inch away from your face. The virtual FOV is just not big enough scine the "hand in front of your face" covers a much bigger angle/ield of view.

(I hope i understand this right now)

[Tril]

I forgot about the problem of rendering at 1080p. I've been playing Crysis at 800x600 without stereo on my 8600 GT (this card is bad, it's not much faster than a 7900 GT) to keep the fps fluid. There's no way this card could render with high fps at 1080p resolution.

Do any of the stereo drivers (old NVIDIA, new NVIDIA, DDD, iZ3D, eDimensional) support rendering at a low resolution and scaling to a higher resolution before outputting (render at 720p, stretch to 1080p, output at 1080p)? I'm not entirely sure but this seems like something that might be possible to do with DirectX.

[yuriythebest]

I forgot about the problem of rendering at 1080p. I've been playing Crysis at 800x600 without stereo on my 8600 GT (this card is bad, it's not much faster than a 7900 GT) to keep the fps fluid. There's no way this card could render with high fps at 1080p resolution.

Do any of the stereo drivers (old NVIDIA, new NVIDIA, DDD, iZ3D, eDimensional) support rendering at a low resolution and scaling to a higher resolution before outputting (render at 720p, stretch to 1080p, output at 1080p)? I'm not entirely sure but this seems like something that might be possible to do with DirectX.

I have a 8600GTS + 4 cores. crysis works more or less ok at 1024*768 with high settings, and with medium settings- same resolution the speed is like in counter strike.

[crim3]

I have a z800, I bought it just when the price changed. I looked for a online shop with outdated price and bought it! I was lucky. Now it isn't worth the price for a domestic user, a shame.

I always try to have real size objects. This is done with proper separation, convergence and game FOV (when the game allows it). The separation must match your interpupil distance. Game FOV must match your display FOV. Then convergence must be adjusted till everything seems to be at the right scale. This all is easier with a HMD because the distance to the screen is always the same.

Then comes the problem of the narrow FOV mentioned. Unfortunately, when you adjust everything to be real size it's like if you were looking through a very little window. Ideally it should be the same than looking to the real world through a square hole of the equivalent size. You can do the test with your hands, in a film director pose, and see how tiny it is compared with all the unused FOV around your hands. I compensate it with the headtracking. As I mostly play with flight sims I can enjoy it overall a lot. I could not call it immersion yet, but it's a cool way of interfacing with the computer, a lot more natural.

But I dream with large FOV's. The ultimate experience will be full FOV: say goodbye to the 'stereo window'. Field of view it's number one priority over everything else, even pixel density. Bigger resolutions should be used to increase FOV and not pixel density.

About the pop-out effect, when you set it right, objects that are virtually closer to your face than physically it is the screen, will pop-out of it. In my opinion, if you are playing with real size objects, it isn't something you have to force, it may happen naturally. But as have been said, with a HMD you can't say very well, or at least, it isn't so evident, when something is poping out of the screen or not, but when is near your face or not.

[flexy]

crim3,

you nailed it.

Btw...i always thought that "basically" a big FOV should be possible with good optics, also if a virtual HMD screen would only have 800x600 pixels...but shouldnt it be possible to make the FOV biiiiiiig, bigger than 40 deg?

then i read that its actually the OPTICS which are expensive and not the OLEDs or the display itself.

[crim3]

I have read that the achievable FOV depends on the lens size. Maybe it could be done with bigger lenses. But if you kept the same resolution, the pixel density will reduce. The z800 displays are already at the minimum acceptable. To increase FOV the resolution should be increased accordingly. It is also important the fact that bigger lenses weight more, and they must be hanging from your head comfortably.
It's really a complicated thing all this about HMD design. Those engineers out there really have sharp minds.

[Okta]

Small fov is the immersion killer no matter if its hmd, lcd, or projector. It can be said that fov is more important than stereo for immersion.
I recently played through crysis on a 19 inch ldc with the f550 fresnel lens (which is a bit too small for the monitor) and i must say it was awesome the guns seem about REAL scale as if you were holding them yourself and the lens gives the nice focul distance increase.

A 24lcd with an appropriate lens would be sweet + stereo would be something special.

[flexy]

whow okta,

i never heard about this. I did a quick read about fresnel lenses, and the effect seems to be awesome. Will look into this.

[Okta]

Here is some info flexy - http://mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1194

I was all set to get a vr920 but the fov killed that idea. On a small screen stereo is just a novelty and does not add to the vr feel much.

[DickDastardly]

I have to agree with Flexy about the importance of image size. I went from a 21" CRT (with shutterglasses) to a 72" picture from a DLP projector (still using shutterglasses) and the difference in immersion was massive. The fact that figures in an fps are life size now really helps to fool the brain that you're looking at reality. The projector was only £300 on ebay too i.e. a similar price to a 3D monitor but with several times the image size and better resolution.
Cheers,
DD

[subwoofa]

I'm not sure I follow some of the logic here. I always adjust my convergence and separation to make everything look lifesize, for every game, on my 24" monitor and shutter glasses. As long as you are using the maximum separation, all you have to do is push the convergence far enough away so that your miniaturized characters start to look lifesize again. Basically that's all the fresnel lens is doing anyway. Games with floating overhead cameras aren't going to be that exciting, while FPS shooters where you can see the gun in your hand and rockets flying directly at you are going to be much better.

I'm not sure if there's a scientific way to do this, but for every game I set the separation to maximum, and find an object in the game to look at as close as possible (i.e. taking up most of the screen), and adjust the convergence so that the object appears life size. Most of my gaming is spent focused on distant objects (ie. at least a couple of feet away from me), so I rarely get any "pop out" (except for an FPS gun, which is usually around screen depth). Still, if you were to recreate your favorite games in real life, how often would you be looking at anything closer than a couple of feet?

As for the image size, at 2 feet away from my 24" widescreen I already can't see parts of the screen through both lenses of the shutterglasses when looking straight ahead, but I can see how a larger monitor would be even better... still, I wouldn't go so far as to call my own setup half-a$$.

[cybereality]

I once saw a movie about fishes at an IMAX 3D theatre. It was really impressive. That movie was filmed underwater. There were lots of particles floating in the water. This movie was really great because the 3D feel was very big. The particles really looked like they were floating in the room and some of them looked so close that it felt like you could touch them with your hands (I saw some people try to touch them ).

Yeah! I saw that same movie, it was called 'Into the Deep' if I remember correctly. And I was one of the people trying to touch the fish! That movie was incredible, way more 3d than even Beowulf or basically anything I've seen since. The fish really looked like holograms floating in space. Simply amazing.

I'd have to agree with what other people have said. The FOV is the single most important factor (maybe the *only* factor) in immersion. Seeing the "edge" of the world simply kills the effect. I've used S-3D setups with a bunch of different methods, anaglyph, active/passive lcd glasses, hmds, etc. and the IMAX 3D trumps everything. One time I got to see this Pink Floyd 3D laser light show at the planetarium. That was pretty wild, you just looked up and it filled your entire view. For a true immersive experience you probably need at least a 100" screen, probably more, and preferably curved.

The most promising method I think would be to use a dome like screen with active stereo glasses. There are two products coming out this year, the Z-Dome and the J-Dome (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-IvzpFE7nc), that look like they might fit the bill. It also wouldn't be incredible hard to build one of those yourself. With a 180-degree FOV and S-3D I think you could display life-size objects with full immersion. A setup like that might cost around $1200 or less if you cheap out on the resolution. This is still a bit more expensive than existing solutions like the iz3D or the VR920.

Also, a few years back I tried out a Fresnel lens on a 19" CRT monitor. I had build this box around the monitor, it was from these plans I found online to build a DIY projector. The fresnel lens could slide back and forth to focus the image to different throw distances. It did sorta work, but the screen was very dim and blurry so it wasn't very practical. However, I noticed by looking into the lens at a close distance (basically with my nose touching it) it would look like a larger virtual space. Combined with some lcd shutter glasses this gave a very unique experience. The image was blurry as all hell, but it somehow felt like you were there. Everything seemed very large, like on an IMAX screen. I'm thinking there might be a way to mod existing HMDs with small fresnel lens but if it was that easy wouldn't someone have already done this?

[android78]

I hope this may help explain why sometimes it looks like you are playing with dolls:

As you can see, if you have the separation set too low (which often happens if you like a lot of popout) then because everything looks so close, it also makes the virtual image look very small. I would suggest that you adjust the settings to increase the separation which will make everything look much further away, but also will make them seem bigger.

The problem with this is that you may then have to adjust the divergence so that you can still see the background without it going double. I only have a 22" monitor and am using kinddragon openstereo driver (no luck for me with the other drivers yet) and trusty red/blue glasses and I can make games look real with the correct settings. I like to have my monitor about 1 1/2 - 2 feet away so I have good FOV, but with this close you don't want ANY popout or else it won't look real.

[Freke1]

The jDome could be nice. Projecting the "normal" image from the monitor onto a halfdome must look distorted though.
The games are designed with a FOV, and the monitor/screen must match this if You know what I mean.

[cybereality]

The jDome could be nice. Projecting the "normal" image from the monitor onto a halfdome must look distorted though.
The games are designed with a FOV, and the monitor/screen must match this if You know what I mean.

Most popular first-person games allow manual tweaking of the FOV. I know Half-Life 2 and other source games do this, Unreal Tourney, Crysis, Oblivion, most racing/flight sims, probably others. It still couldn't un-distort the 2D elements, but the HUD is usually borked in S-3D anyway so no loss there. The guys with the Z-Dome had a setup with 3 separate projectors to avoid the extreme distortion, but I think they wanted like $15k, which may not even include the price of the projectors! (3 x HD projectors = $$$).

@android78: I'm not sure if that diagram fully explains what is going on. In simple terms, you are not going to display a "life-size" object that is larger than the screen display. Sure, you could display a 757 out in the distance, but thats not what people want to see. They want to see the gun *in their hands* or their fist connect with a boxer's face if Fight Night was in 3D. That technically cannot happen on a 22" 3D display or 40-degree HMD. In my opinion, you have about a cubic foot or 300 mm square volume to work with (maybe deeper, but not closer). Now amount of tweaking is going to net you objects that are bigger than this size that exist at screen distance or closer.

[android78]

I disagree, cyber. If you have a 22" screen that is roughly 22" from your face, that means that an object that is 36" (3 feet, which I believe we view most objects at) you could see a 36" object, which is roughly 1/3rd of my height. try doing an experiment, where you make a frame that is 22" with the frame only so you can see through it and walk around with it 2 feet from you (roughly arms length), look through it and see how much you can see. You can see quite a lot. This should be able to be reproduced on a correctly setup system. You could potentially even get closer to the screen, lets say 11" (if it weren't for the focus) and that would mean that at 3 feet you would be able to see an object that is 72" or 6 feet. The trick is that when you setup with a screen that is close to you, in reality nothing should be in front of the screen if you want it to be like real life.when holding a gun, how much of the gun is within 1 1/2 to 2 feet of your eyes?

I disagree with using something like the dome because the software doesn't compensate for the wrap around so you end up with distortion at the sides which is pointless. As an example:

A) Firstly, the renderer renders as if it will be viewed on a flat, 2D surface
B) Then you project the 2D image on the spherical surface

C) Then when you view the image from inside the middle of the sphere, the sides will be VERY distorted. This can't be the solution we are looking for!

[crim3]

I disagree with using something like the dome because the software doesn't compensate for the wrap around so you end up with distortion at the sides which is pointless.

3D applications done or adapted for dome displays use the proper projection matrix. Quite easy to do. But yes, it won't work if not adapted.

[crim3]

In fact, all games use a plane for projection, which is a good aproximation and fast to calculate, but the edges get distorted with wide view angles. Maybe it would adapt better than we thing to a spherical display for very high view angles, as the the shape of the display would counteract the edges distorsion. But the projector should be in front, not in the back. A retroprojector would increase the distorsion as seen in the pictures.

[flexy]

well as in regards to realism.

It doesnt need to be so extreme that (literally) the screen *must* fit any object to be displayed.

Nevertheless, a small display, say "normal" monitor size is just not suitable, i agree again 100% with all people who share the opinion how important FOV is. IMHO FOV is more important than "real" 3D and should defintly have priority.

Example:

I remember seeing this helicopter/flight movie through the grand canyon. And i also remember the feeling almost falling to the ground, and this was way, way before we had "real" IMAX and real 3D movies.

The dome-movie theater with the grand canyon movie was, well, a little bit smaller than the real grand canyon

(If the eye/eyballs need to focus "far", the brain gets the impression something is far away...thus objects on the screen appearing bigger)

Example: My 22" monitor seen against the wall on the other side of the room, SEEMS to cover 12 ft - it has the same FOV as if i would have a GIANT screen a little further away on my wall. The brain just "sees" and experiemces it smaller sicne it is closer, so it is just a "normal" PC monitor.

Interestingly, if i had a giant screen covering the same FOV on the wall....i am pretty sure that a movie about the grand canyon would be WAY, WAY more impressive on that wall than playing the movie here on my monitor - with the same FOV, mind you, given that i stay here on my chair and not move closer to the wall.

So..all it must be about is to fool the brain (by optics) that a small display/FOV "in reality" is further away..eg. the eye must focus "farther". So..from that "point of view" (excuse my pun) screen size wouldnt even play that big a role.

[yuriythebest]

well as in regards to realism.

It doesnt need to be so extreme that (literally) the screen *must* fit any object to be displayed.

Nevertheless, a small display, say "normal" monitor size is just not suitable, i agree again 100% with all people who share the opinion how important FOV is. IMHO FOV is more important than "real" 3D and should defintly have priority.

Example:

I remember seeing this helicopter/flight movie through the grand canyon. And i also remember the feeling almost falling to the ground, and this was way, way before we had "real" IMAX and real 3D movies.

The dome-movie theater with the grand canyon movie was, well, a little bit smaller than the real grand canyon

It's the FOV...or (interestengly) the "illusion" of a FOV. (If the eye/eyballs need to focus "far", the brain gets the impression something is far away...thus objects on the screen appearing bigger)

Example: My 22" monitor seen against the wall on the other side of the room, SEEMS to cover 12 ft - it has the same FOV as if i would have a GIANT screen a little further away on my wall. The brain just "sees" and experiemces it smaller sicne it is closer, so it is just a "normal" PC monitor.

Interestingly, if i had a giant screen covering the same FOV on the wall....i am pretty sure that a movie about the grand canyon would be WAY, WAY more impressive on that wall than playing the movie here on my monitor - with the same FOV, mind you, given that i stay here on my chair and not move closer to the wall.

So..all it must be about is to fool the brain (by optics) that a small display/FOV "in reality" is further away..eg. the eye must focus "farther". So..from that "point of view" (excuse my pun) screen size wouldnt even play that big a role.

alternatively you can have a 15' crt and be 3 cm away

[flexy]

yes..but the brain is not easily fooled. it "knows" its only 3cm away. Yes..you got a big FOV...but instead of giving the eye the illusion its really big (and far away)..you actually do the opposite by moving it so close

So..basically this is right (big FOV!)...but practically there are hurdles.

the interesting thing is..all this has PRIMARILY not to do with 3D...but nevertheless i think it esessential.

They need to bring out a monitor/display where you need to focus that way that the brain thinks its a display way farther away, and not only 10" in front of our face. Interestingly, as the eyes/brain perceives depth/distance...its not only the angle/difference between the two pictures left and right....possibly also how far the eye-lense has to bend/bulge to achieve focus to give an additional impression to the brain (just as a side note). Eg. close objects blurry if we look far away...or vice versa, far objects blurry etc..etc..depending how the lens adjusts.

I always think...there might be a way to fool the eye in perceived distance...if you artifically "blur" something in the right way so the eye needs to focus as if it were far in reality.

[yuriythebest]

hopefully in the future with e-paper we can have cheap big domes maybe 3m in diameter made out of plastic and a double layer of polarized epaper- that'd be swell!

**starts waiting anxiously***

[crim3]

yes..but the brain is not easily fooled. it "knows" its only 3cm away. Yes..you got a big FOV...but instead of giving the eye the illusion its really big (and far away)..you actually do the opposite by moving it so close

They need to bring out a monitor/display where you need to focus that way that the brain thinks its a display way farther away, and not only 10" in front of our face. Interestingly, as the eyes/brain perceives depth/distance...its not only the angle/difference between the two pictures left and right....possibly also how far the eye-lense has to bend/bulge to achieve focus to give an additional impression to the brain (just as a side note). Eg. close objects blurry if we look far away...or vice versa, far objects blurry etc..etc..depending how the lens adjusts.

I always think...there might be a way to fool the eye in perceived distance...if you artifically "blur" something in the right way so the eye needs to focus as if it were far in reality.

That's why stereo-3D never can be totally right. Part of the depth perception comes from the different optical focus at different distances.
Fortunately the bigger part of depth perception comes from the eye convergence and we all can enjoy 3D gaming.
I read once what's the optimal distance for stereo-3D, but can't remember the data. I think it was about 10 m only.
You can train yourselft to see in stereo at 3 cm of the display, but it would be really eye straining. We train ourself anyway, but at normal display distances. I still remember those days when my eyes refused to focus on distance objects or specially on close objects.

About real size objects. You are mixing the size of the object with the distance to the object. Even in real life, if you are close enough, a big object won't fit the natural FOV (leaving aside eye movement). A 747 will fit in the display if it's far enough and you will see only a part of it if you get closer, but still it's in real size.

EDITED: added quote and some more ranting

[cybereality]

yes..but the brain is not easily fooled. it "knows" its only 3cm away. Yes..you got a big FOV...but instead of giving the eye the illusion its really big (and far away)..you actually do the opposite by moving it so close

Yeah, thats more what I was getting to. In order to get proper "out-of-screen" effects I've found it best to sit about 3 or 4 feet away from the monitor. While this helps fool my eyes, its also makes the perceived area of the screen much smaller (almost half the size). As I move back the screen-space will start to expand, such that close objects appear out of screen and distant objects become further back. So we are not just dealing with the virtual screen size as a mere function of the focal distance. I think that a 22" monitor can, of course, display some really nice 3d effects but its not going to be Matrix/Holodeck quality no matter how close you sit.

[android78]

Good to see some people jumping on this topic because I think it's important to understand the feeling of a large screen. I have to say I totally agree with the recent posts. There are two things that affect how far away we percieve things; the focal distance and the eyes divergence. The eyes divergence can be altered with the software forceware drivers by increasing the separation. The focal distance is more difficult. To make a 22" screen look really big, you need to have a lense that is similar to what long sighted people wear for reading glasses. These extend the focal distance past where the eye would usually be focusing.
Maybe the reason why I am able to have the monitor close and get the effect of a larger screen is because I'm short sighted and wear glasses. When I look at the monitor without my glasses, because I'm used to wearing glasses, I actually feel as if I'm focusing farther away so I'm easly fooled into the perception when I have the separation and divergence set so the background is approximately 6cm seperation between right eye image and left eye image (6cm is approx the distance between my pupils) and the gun (or hands) are just behind the screen.
I would be interrested if you 'normal sighted people' (who don't wear glasses) were to get a pair of those cheep old persons reading glasses (which are for long sighted people) and try with the monitor closer to your face, does it give you a better effect?

[Freke1]

We can't tell if it's a small object close up or a big object far away when we use only 1 eye, so obviously the only thing that matters is the angeling of the eyes (convergence). The focus distance has no importance. Am I right on this thought? So we actually have super 3D because everything is rendered sharp, unlike the real world were only the things we focus on is rendered sharp. Or am I missing something...

[Sabre2552]

We can't tell if it's a small object close up or a big object far away when we use only 1 eye, so obviously the only thing that matters is the angeling of the eyes (convergence). The focus distance has no importance. Am I right on this thought? So we actually have super 3D because everything is rendered sharp, unlike the real world were only the things we focus on is rendered sharp. Or am I missing something...

I'm confused about this whole idea... So even if we had separate dome LCDs that covered both our eyes and projected two slightly different pictures to each eye, it still wouldn't be as accurate as real life? Or am I misunderstanding...?

[chrisdfw]

We can't tell if it's a small object close up or a big object far away when we use only 1 eye, so obviously the only thing that matters is the angeling of the eyes (convergence). The focus distance has no importance. Am I right on this thought? So we actually have super 3D because everything is rendered sharp, unlike the real world were only the things we focus on is rendered sharp. Or am I missing something...

I'm confused about this whole idea... So even if we had separate dome LCDs that covered both our eyes and projected two slightly different pictures to each eye, it still wouldn't be as accurate as real life? Or am I misunderstanding...?

You aren't misunderstanding. The one component of 3d perception that deals with focussing your eye cannot be easily simulated. This, however, has a very minor effect and I would estimate that 20% of 3d perception is based on focus. That being said, the farther away your eyes focus the easier it is to believe you are in a real world that is at a real scale.

I personally use a DLP projector at 1024X768 85hz. It projects on a 4 foot wide by 3 foot tall screen about 5 feet in front of me. The field of view is about 45 degrees which is typically the default FOV in games. I also am in a completely enclosed 7 foot long by 4 foot wide by 5 foot tall "box" to block out the outside world and really simulate a racing or flying experience. The fact that the screen is a similar distance away as a real windshield of a car or airplane just makes the experience that much more realistic.

It's the best immersive 3d experience I could come up with and is better than anything I experienced from 15 years of going to Amusement/Arcade trade shows.

The other thing to remember about resolution is the "percieved" resolution you get with 3d. Playing a game at 1024X768 in 3d makes the detail in the game appear more like 2048X1536. Your brain combines and interpolates details in the two distinct images to form one very detailed image.

I'll be trying out a 42inch 3d Samsung plasma ($900@Frys) pretty soon and it will be interesting to see how that compares to my $500 Sharpe XR-10X projector.

[Freke1]

Just wondering how the 3D world is created in my brain.

If You see an unknown object (f.ex. a UFO) with 1 eye You can't tell how big it is.
If You see it with 2 eyes You can tell how big it is because You compare it with the trees below it.
If You saw it in a totally new space world would You be able to tell? Why?

Is there a difference between seeing a 2D photo and seeing the same scenario in real life with 1 eye?
Curious about this...

[clifss]

Hello,
Long time reader, first time poster Just my two cents about screen size perception. In stereovision.net days there was one discussion how to make monitor feel like big screen. Process was fairly simple. If you make stereo-pair from ordinary 2d picture or movie file with slightly horizontaly offset image in left and in opposite direction for right eye. Later viewing it with any stereoscopic solution will produce image either closer or farther than actual screen. So by movin picture for each eye more apart, you can simulate feeling of looking at large screen, but albeit thru window of monitor frame .

[yuriythebest]

Just wondering how the 3D world is created in my brain.

If You see an unknown object (f.ex. a UFO) with 1 eye You can't tell how big it is.
If You see it with 2 eyes You can tell how big it is because You compare it with the trees below it.
If You saw it in a totally new space world would You be able to tell? Why?

Is there a difference between seeing a 2D photo and seeing the same scenario in real life with 1 eye?
Curious about this...

real life is still better- you'd be able to move around and see how the ufo 'changes' relative to how you move. Same in 3d games.
Btw with my 19'crt the most I aim for is not real-life scale but the ability to judge distances like "wow this is close" and "whaa this is so high". After you've experienced those emotions flat gaming is just old.

clifss- welcome the phenomenon you are referring to is "stereo separation".