VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 11 2002 - 17:22:56 CDT

Hi Jill,
  I'm not sure what might be causing the flicker/jumping on your
Eye3D setup. I just ran through a wide range of resolutions, topping
out at 1920x1080 @ 85Hz, all of the modes I tried at 85Hz or above
looked to be usable for stereo. I personally prefer 100Hz or higher
for stereo, but the GeForce2 in my test machine won't go that high for
1920x1080, though it does for 1600x900 and various other resolutions
which are still higher than 1280x1024. I'm using a Sony 500PS and it
doesn't exhibit any jumpiness etc. I'm using NT on this particular
machine, so perhaps something else is causing the problem you describe.
Its possible that your video driver isn't doing nice vertical retrace
sync, which can make a big difference when you're using stereo.
Have you tried enabling vertical retrace sync in your video driver settings?
I have mine enabled for the GeForce2 NT driver and it works very well,
no image tearing, popping, etc.

I've seen the Stereographics Synthagram monitors, but there's a problem with
them at present:
  Stereographics has not released the pixel mask pattern necessary to
  write stereoscopic programs for these displays. At present, the only
  way you can use one of these displays is to run Windows, with the special
  driver software they've developed. Since they had very simple demos shown
  on their displays at Siggraph I was unable to determine if they are
  very good for the sorts of things we do in molecular visualization.
  Given the lack of software development information on these displays,
  I cannot recommend them to anyone yet, nor can I promise that they'll
  work well with VMD. If Stereographics see fit to release the necessary
  software development information, then I would be able to write support
  code for these displays directly into VMD. Until that happens though, I'm
  taking a "wait and see" attitude. If someone gets to see one run a more
  sophisticated 3-D demo, I'd love to hear about it, please post such
  experiences to this mailing list if you get a chance to see one.

Thanks,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Wed, Sep 11, 2002 at 11:53:44AM -0700, Jill Vickery wrote:
> Hi!
> In a quest to get the best 3D picture possible I have tried to increase the
> screen resolution I am using. My monitor is a Sony G520 and supports 1280
> X1024 at 120Hz and 1600 X 1200 at 100Hz. However with the Eye3D premium
> adapter at 1600 X 1200 the glasses flicker and are basically unusable.
> Reducing the resolution to 1280x1024 (100hz) helps solve the problem but new
> ones arise. I find that with the eye3D adapter in place the monitor seems
> to jump around, reducing the refresh rate to 85Hz seems to eliminate the
> problem but of course I can no longer do stereo. Seems that the only way I
> can do stereo is at 800 X 600 100hz or 120hz, seems like a waste of a very
> nice monitor. I am running Windows XP Pro and have the same problem with
> the ATI Radeon 8500LE and nVidia Geforce4 MX 420 card. Has anyone else
> experienced these problems? Would the Stereographics Crystal Eye or Nuvision
> glasses allow better 3D?
>
> Also I has anyone tried or seen the Stereographics SynthaGram Monitors?
> They currently have a 20" and a 42" model (a 42" screen wow!) that do stereo
> with no glasses. I would be interested in any feedback.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Jill 

-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349              
  WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/      Fax: 217-244-6078