[Edu-sig] 3d goggles -- any recommendations

[John Zelle]

Hans,

There are lots of sources for the cheap (<= $0.40 US) anaglyph 
(red-blue) glasses on the net. I have recently ordered from 
RainbowSymphony and had decent results (not wild about the packaging but 
otherwise fine).

As for the shutterglasses, it depends on what you are trying to achieve. 
There are some cheap ones (VR-Joy has a pair for under $100) that can be 
used with any video card, but they require either:

1) special software drivers that convert regular OpenGL code to 
frame-swapping stereo. This software usually is designed for games under 
windows. (i.e. NOT vpython or VTK apps and generally not under Linux.)

2) use of interlace mode. This requires your images to have left and 
right eye interlaced. Effectively halving your vertical resolution. At 
the moment, neither VPython or VTK supports this, although I had 
intended to add this to the VPython mode, and just never got around to it.

Otherwise, you are talking about investing in a quad-buffered stereo 
card. I doubt if you can find this in the price range you are talking 
about. If so, it would be a very low-end product. I can't say that I've 
looked into this very recently.

If you told us a little bit more about what you are hoping to 
accomplish, I might have some ideas for you. We've done quite a bit of 
playing with stereo display here (I am one of the principle authors of 
the VPython stereo mode). If you've got a couple protable LCD or DLP 
projectors available, you can put together a nice portable, full-color, 
multiple viewer stereo display system for the price that you're 
considering. You might check out some of the things we've done on this page:
http://mcsp.wartburg.edu/SVEN
Unfortunately, I don't think any of the VTK stereo modes work with our 
setup, but some other packages do (e.g. VPython and the molecular 
modeler PyMol).

--John


Hans Fangohr wrote:

> Hi Kirby,
>
>> On the low end, price-wise, I was able to snag a stack of red/blue 
>> stereo
>> glasses from a local 3D museum.  They're basically cardboard with 
>> cellophane
>> color filters, and I got mine for free.  I expect they'd typically go 
>> for
>> well under a euro in bulk.
>
> This is excellent (and if anyone can tell me where I can order such 
> glasses, please do! (Need them delivered to the United Kingdom)). I'd 
> love to use this, too -- seems ideal for presentations and lectures.
>
>> And I obtained these glasses specifically for a demonstration involving
>> VPython.  I wanted my OSCON 2004 audience to experience a rhombic
>> triacontahedron floating out in front of the big screen on which I was
>> projecting.  The illusion was very effective, with people going oooooo,
>> ahhhhhh.
>
> I remember reading your email about it ;-)
>
> However, I am still interested in the more high-tech product I did ask 
> for: it's appealing in another sense.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Hans
>
>
>>
>> Kirby
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: edu-sig-bounces at python.org [mailto:edu-sig-bounces at python.org] On
>>> Behalf Of Hans Fangohr
>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 8:49 AM
>>> To: edu-sig at python.org
>>> Subject: [Edu-sig] 3d goggles -- any recommendations
>>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> I am looking for a product that provides three-dimensionality to OpenGL
>>> (aiming for visual Python but also VTK graphics) scenes (for teaching
>>> purposes). Something like graphics adapter with 3d goggles which 
>>> work in
>>> sync and provide two pictures one for the left and the other for the 
>>> right
>>> eye. Price range not to exceed 250US$; better less.
>>>
>>> Does a product fitting this criteria exists? Does anyone have any
>>> experience with such systems?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Hans
>>>
>>> P.S. It would help if this piece of hardware worked on Linux.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Edu-sig mailing list
>>> Edu-sig at python.org
>>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
>>
>>
>>
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> Dr Hans Fangohr
>
> Computational Engineering & Design Research Group
> School of Engineering Sciences
> University of Southampton
> Southampton, SO17 1BJ
> United Kingdom
>
> Location: Building 25, Room 1027
> phone : +44 (0) 23 8059 8345
> fax   : +44 (0) 23 8059 7082
> email : fangohr at soton.ac.uk
> -------------------------------------------------
>
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