iZ3D that takes dual passive stereo input?

[laranzu]

Follow up from my earlier question about iZ3D without special drivers...

Why not build an iZ3D monitor that takes as inputs the standard stereo left eye and right eye image streams generated by existing passive stereo computers and cameras? Put the magic conversion algorithm in a chip in the back of the monitor instead of inside special drivers on the host computer.

Disadvantage: not compatible with PC games, which seems to be iZ3Ds current market. So don't think of it as a replacement for the current products, instead a new product for new markets.

Advantage: there already is a small but growing stereo industry, both in VR and film, using passive stereo. With a left/right eye image input monitor, iZ3D would instantly be compatible with all the existing content and production systems. For example, James Cameron has been making 3D passive stereo documentaries and is about to release his first made-for-passive-stereo feature film. He wants more passive stereo systems around the world, but I rather doubt he's going to drop his existing systems just so he can switch to the existing iZ3D range.

[nubie]

Well it is technically just two LCD panels back to back without some of the polarizing layers, so a driver can't be all that hard to do.

The algorithm might as well be in the software. (I understand the IP/NDA hassles, but the software could be the project)

You could even work on it as a "clean-room" project, just attach two screens to an nVidia solution and choose NeurOK front/back, then see what values it is using for the same pixels on one screen versus the other.

All you would need for that is any nvidia card, xp, two screens and the stereo drivers.

I think the cost would go way up if there was hardware involved (and it really is superfluous), besides the algorithm can't be all that hard to reverse engineer, once you have the basic physics of the operation (polarizing layer, LCD, LCD polarizing layer?) figured out. Or simply a couple displays showing you what is output to each LCD.

[laranzu]

Not picking on you personally nubie, but if the stereoscopic 3D industry is to develop, it has to get past the 'garage VR' phase where everything gets hacked together.

I don't want to reverse engineer the algorithm, even if I could. I (along with most stereoscopic users/developers) want to plug standard components together and have them Just Work.

Perhaps I'm over enthusiastic due to reading a recent James Cameron interview about his 3D work, but I really believe there is a good chance of stereoscopic displays starting to appear in homes. If (a big if) the current boom in 3D movies doesn't fizzle out, stereo will become an option for high end home theatres. The movie industry has settled on passive stereo as the delivery format of choice, so this will mean dual left eye/right eye output) BluRay players and dual input big screens or projector pairs.

If that happens, passive stereo output for PCs (many of which are already dual head) will likewise become the preferred format for game developers.

This isn't meant to diss the iZ3D people. It may not be the right display for me, but I'm still impressed by their efforts and hope they succeed in getting more people interested in stereoscopic displays.

[nubie]

Not picking on you personally nubie, but if the stereoscopic 3D industry is to develop, it has to get past the 'garage VR' phase where everything gets hacked together.

I don't want to reverse engineer the algorithm, even if I could. I (along with most stereoscopic users/developers) want to plug standard components together and have them Just Work.

Perhaps I'm over enthusiastic due to reading a recent James Cameron interview about his 3D work, but I really believe there is a good chance of stereoscopic displays starting to appear in homes. If (a big if) the current boom in 3D movies doesn't fizzle out, stereo will become an option for high end home theatres. The movie industry has settled on passive stereo as the delivery format of choice, so this will mean dual left eye/right eye output) BluRay players and dual input big screens or projector pairs.

If that happens, passive stereo output for PCs (many of which are already dual head) will likewise become the preferred format for game developers.

This isn't meant to diss the iZ3D people. It may not be the right display for me, but I'm still impressed by their efforts and hope they succeed in getting more people interested in stereoscopic displays.

I believe that their first setup had a box, but I think it is probably far too expensive to put into the hardware for a viable mainstream product. Unless of course they engineer the monitor from the ground up, but I don't think they have the resources for that yet. Added to the hassle is updates to the code to improve the quality. You might ask if there is such a box available.

Perhaps a middle ground would be the addition of a "generic" mode in the firmware of the monitor that will provide simple Dual input like you are thinking of, and a "direct mode" that will allow both LCD panels to be exposed to the input raw, so that optimizations and new code will run on their proprietary software just fine.

I didn't mean to diss you at all, and I agree that we need to move beyond the hacky stage, but that is in part achieved by identifying the technological hurdles to 3D (and in part the economical concerns over the hardware, making it affordable in other words), and then tackling them. The hardware and software are very much connected. In that iZ3D is trying to provide both hardware and software as products they have a real need to protect their IP.

If the function of two liquid crystal polarizing layers, and the accompanying passive polarization layers, is known and the code to easily output to them is developed and released open source then it will only help further the development of S3D.

Not to say that an additional box looks mighty tempting from the software point of view, but as a whole solution it is a little less than elegant. The cost is a big deal here, many other systems start to look good if you have to add another box to the price.

I use a Planar rig (proving your point I had to build it myself, although many others have done it before me, and indeed after me), this is nearly perfect from a software standpoint because you have one screen for each eye and you need only to mirror one screen in the software.

Perhaps DLP shutterglasses, or indeed the DLP wheels with integrated circular polarization, will help S3D take off. At the present time it is also pretty easy to set up dual projection of polarized content, which unlike a fairly bulky planar rig doesn't take up noticeably more room (projectors are usually mounted where there is room for another projector without too much work), but isn't as inexpensive as a desk mounted setup, nor as suited to continuous operation.

I now notice a bit of a flaw in your interpretation of "passive stereo", as far as I know the digital showing of 3D movies is done on a DLP with circular polarization on the color wheel, and the correct image is presented to each eye multiple times per rotation of the wheel. This leaves it to the projector how to provide the 3D. I don't know if multiple output players would be called for, it seems that it would make more sense to send one frame at a time to the projector, and then let it display them. This way standard hardware wouldn't need to be changed too much (if at all) on the player side, just the firmware to enable a tag to be placed on the frame that the projector could pick up and keep the output synchronized to the correct eye.

[android78]

I think nubie is correct regarding the passive technology that is being used in cinemas. From what I've read, the two main ones (other then iMax), one (Real D) is using a circular polarization as part of the colour wheel of a DLP and the other (Dolby Digital 3D) is using a special colour filter that has many colour spectrum bands being filtered out for each eye (my understanding of this may be a little off), but is still using a DLP as the source.
With each of these technologies, the image is being alternated between each eye, but at around 75 times a second (which is 3 per frame of film since movies are filmed at 25 FPS) so you won't notice this.
The problem as I see it is that there has not been a decision by the different manufacturers to have a single standard for the input/outputs of the signals. This is partly because they are just adding features on top of standard interfaces (most still only use the analog RGB from VGA) and there has been no inclusion of 3D format in the specification of these. Having dual outputs is a nice idea, but I don't believe very elegant since most future devices should be in a single box and why should you require 2 signal cables to connect to one device. Much of this may be able to be overcome with the introduction of DVI, but I'm guessing that this won't happen unless NVidia start only supporting one interface type.
The other issue is that there doesn't appear to be any standard for the storing and playback of S3D. Once again, it appears companies (TD Vision, etc) are creating their own format to work with their own devices. The only way this will change is if there is a forum such as there was for BlueRay that develop a standard that is agreed on by the major movie studios and content starts being produced for this.

All in all, there is a long way to go which is frustrating since there won't be community acceptance of S3D if you have to hack together your solution, and it appears there won't be standards until the community accepts S3D as a whole. Chicken and egg issue here. The hope I have is that the community will start to demand the movies at the cinema that are being produced in 3D to be available in 3D for their home and this develops the standards which can then be adapted for the computer and then games. This would seem the wrong way round since the computer S3D has been used/developed the longest, but it's the only way I can see things progressing. Give it another 5-10 years and things should be a lot better.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant. :-/