Meant to be Seen

Hello,

i come across this site a few times the past days when i was playing around with 3D Vision Discover (Free Analygraph s3D you get with Nvidia Drivers), so i registered to share some of my thoughts and maybe get some input from you guys. I have been s3D gaming a bit in the Past with the old Shutterglasses (Elsa Revelator) on a CRT, and tryed out the 3D Vision Discover with some very Old Red/Cyan glasses (Brand BULLFROG, came with Magic Carpet i think, have been gaming for some time *g*).

At the moment i play Lord of the Rings Online most of the time, and to my surprise it works very well in most conditions. The Stereo Effect somehow gives it a very cute "Toy World" feeling. I found myself staring at boxes, camps and all sort of objects and was amazed by it. So i surfed the web for info on the current generation of stereoscopic gaming. So here is what i found out so far, or how i see the current state of it:

3D Vision: Seems to still have ghosting, probably not as bad as the old shutterglasses on a crt, needs an expensive new Monitor (i recently got a 32" FullHD TV i use as a Monitor, 60hz) and won't work if get an ATI Card in the future (8800GT at the moment).
iz3d: Did not read much good about the Monitor, also some ghosting and off colours, not a good 2D monitor and also expensive, would be nice if it had display port (for eyefinity).
zalman trimon: Half resolution for 3d, might not be such a big deal as i remember from the old shutterglasses that 640*480 x 2 seems a bit higher res to the eye, not such a bad 2D monitor, less or no ghosting, good price (around 200€) but bad availability.
HMDs: Seems still at the same state as 10 years ago, low resolution, high cost. Still it would be my dream with headtracking...
Dual Projector Setup: Much too expensive for me, but i like the idea...
3D Vision Discover/Analygraph: Ghosting most of the time (in some situations it looks nearly perfect, in some its very bad), colours not very nice (sometimes its okay, sometimes bad), works in FullHD, no extra cost (maybe some better Glasses that might help with the ghosting), effect still is very impressive and immersive.
All of he above: Not perfect in most games, some glitches, special settings needed, compatibilty etc.

So i have come to the conclusion that maybe the 3D Vision Discover might be the best solution for me. Even with the real thing i will still have some ghosting while costing a lot of money. The only thing that might be something for me is the Zalman monitor, as it could also replace my old 21" SyncMaster1100P that i still use as 2nd Monitor and seems from the info that i could find on it (not much) to be without too many flaws while costing only as much as 3D Vision Glasses + 1 Game.

Should i consider getting the Zalman monitor or stick for the time beeing to my old paperglasses? Some questions that also wandered around my mind: Why does it look so much more "Real" when turning on s3D in game and drastically different and when i close one eye and look at real life in 2D there is not such a big difference? And: After playing for a while with analygraph glasses my eyes "white balance" is off in a funny way, left eye sees the world colder while right eye has a warmer view for some minutes, can that cause problems over time? Might i one day be able to drop the glasses because of that and play without but see the real world in red and blue?

And as this is my first post: Hi to all, very nice place you have here, seems like we still have some way to go to get the perfect 3d experience we all dreamed of when we looked at the Virtual Reality helmets 10 years ago.

Hey, Tretboot, welcome to the forum!

For a newbie you seem to have a pretty good run-down of the available solutions. That pretty much covers the bases. Expect I wouldn't say HMDs are necessarily overpriced (though most are). You can get the VR920 for around $300 these days and its a somewhat decent, albeit low-end, device. Personally I have the Zalman and I am pretty happy with it. For the price you really can't go wrong. If that is too much of an investment I recommend getting a good pair of anaglyph glasses to game on the HDTV. The best ones I've tried are the Pro-Ana ( http://www.3dstereo.com/viewmaster/gla-proa.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ), which have almost no ghosting. I've played with anaglyph for long periods of time and nothing ever happened to my eyes. That afterimage coloring goes away quick. I think you are safe.

And I agree that the ultimate would be a fully immersive HMD but they just don't have them yet. Hell, even the old HMDs from the 90's had better FOV than what passes for an HMD today (ehem... VR920). I actually have the VR920 and I was excited about it at first but the narrow FOV and small virtual screen size killed it for me. I still support Vuzix, though, and I recently bought their latest portable HMD: The Wrap 310. I know its low-end but I hope to support them long enough for them to release a serious VR helmet like from back in the day lawnmower man status. Well, I can dream anyway...

Thanks for the warm welcome!

I always like to inform myself a lot before i buy new toys or when stuff interests me, good that i got most down right. I would gladly pay 300$ for a good HMD, twice or even tripple for a really good one (like at least 1024, near full FOV, decent Headtracking and built to last many years), the other gadget that i am waiting for is nice Sunglasses with a built in hud *dreams*. Have to see if i can get those Pro-Ana glasses here in Germany, i did often read that you might get glasses at shops that sell normal glasses. Also i added the Zalman monitor to my shopping list, if i should find a shop that has one, are they discontinued or why the low price and bad availability?

Glad to hear i will not get some eye damage from gaming this way because i wondered again today when i did set pretty high deepth and convergence in Lotro about what my eyes were doing. Its really strange at times, you set it up, it looks totally messed up, you adjust it a bit and it sort of clicks together in your head. Then when checking without glasses i see that i have to cross my eyes a lot while gaming, but so far i do not really get tired of it. Its really amazing how you can get different 3D looks depending on how far you zoom in on your char and how you set the convergence.

I have also seen that you are working on some nice DIY projects, i might get into that too, did play around a bit with freetrack (Free TrackIR with normal webcam) and would like to maybe build my own HMD (Silly thought i had once while working on my netbook: Building a Headmount, Flip the Display upside down and be able to watch Movies while walking around *g*).

Tretboot wrote: Why does it look so much more "Real" when turning on s3D in game and drastically different and when i close one eye and look at real life in 2D there is not such a big difference?

I ask this myself.

I think this is because you can exagerate the 3d in games to make the effect greater. When i game and someone else wants to look i almost always have to turn down stereo for a little time while my friend adjusts.

I'd add eye lens acommodation to that. You can have depth perception with only one eye because the target is in focus while the rest is blurry.
Some day we will have that in our displays, there is some exciting research done in this field. That would be so cool!!!

Eye lens acommodation seems to make sense, i think that is sort of the same reason why i was not totally amazed by Avatar in 3D in the Cinema. There was some nice 3D effect, but the depth of field often confused my eyes, while s3D at home has everything sharp. Well not totally at least with some convergence settings etc. you already get a partial effect i think which sometimes also destroys your 3d vision when a 2D Hud element pops up and you focus on that. I guess the research goes into tracking the pupils, much like it is done for military helicopter systems (another thing i always wanted to have to assist me in aiming *g*).

Tretboot wrote:Eye lens acommodation seems to make sense, i think that is sort of the same reason why i was not totally amazed by Avatar in 3D in the Cinema. There was some nice 3D effect, but the depth of field often confused my eyes, while s3D at home has everything sharp. Well not totally at least with some convergence settings etc. you already get a partial effect i think which sometimes also destroys your 3d vision when a 2D Hud element pops up and you focus on that. I guess the research goes into tracking the pupils, much like it is done for military helicopter systems (another thing i always wanted to have to assist me in aiming *g*).

I found it! There is no need to track eye. Look at this: http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/true3d/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hmmm, interesting! While having breakfast with my dog and looking at his eyes while he was looking at my food i was also thinking about maybe designing a 3d Display thats closer to beeing another pair of eyes rather than flat displays, as far as i can understand that site this is sort were this is going. The other solution would be to track the pupils with a cam and track which part of the 3d Scene is in focus and then use blur filters like in some games when you aim down your weapon sights.

Btw. i uploaded a screenshot i took while playing Lord of the Rings Online with 3D Vision Discover at a place were the effect was really nice and i had minimal ghosting with my cheap paper glasses: http://www.mtbs3d.com/gallery/displayim ... m=4&pos=35 At that time i was riding a horse in first person, hud turned off. Right now my biggest problem when using it in normal gaming is zooming in and out as i have to readjust convergence and depth for every new perspective, would be very nice if the driver could do that automatically. Also this makes saving a present in the driver pointless, as its only perfect until i touch the scroll wheel.