VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Fri Nov 08 2002 - 14:36:04 CST

Hi Jill,
  I'll look into the save state problem you reported, I haven't run
into this yet, so let me try a few things and see if I learn anything
as a result.

Here's some stereo info for you:
  Since you're running XP, I first wanted you to be aware of the issue
with video refresh rates on XP, which is important for stereo use:
  http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/mailing_list/vmd-l/0945.html

Generally speaking, commercial Unix machines (i.e. Sun, SGI, IBM, HP)
are still quite a ways ahead of the PC world in terms of stereoscopic
display quality, capabilities, etc. If stereo is important to you,
then you should either give serious thought to using one of these
machines.

If its important to you to be able to work in stereo within
Windows, then I would suggest that you consider buying one of the truly
high-end PC graphics boards such as the 3DLabs Wilcat III, NVidia Quadro,
ATI FireGL, etc. These three PC graphics product lines support stereo
and are intended for more serious graphics applications like VMD, rather
than being targeted at the gaming market, which is mostly unconcerned
with stereoscopic display. The high-end Unix machines are still
ahead of the PC cards in terms of combining stereo with features like
multisample antialiasing (much smoother/nicer looking VMD images), so
if those additional features are interesting, that's something to
keep in mind.

The "best" stereo, where cost is irrelevant, would be a CAVE-like
system with head tracked stereo and a completely immersive VR
environment. (using either quad-buffered frame sequential stereo
with one projector per screen, or dual independent video channels with
two projectors per screen). Since cost is irrelevant, you should be
able to find space for such a setup and the high-end Sun or SGI
machine to drive it. You'd want something like a multi-channel
Sun XVR-4000 or SGI InfiniteReality4 type of setup to drive a
system like this.

Failing that, the next best stereo system would be a head-tracked
single projected display, using either quad-buffered frame sequential
stereo, or a dual independent video channel setup with two projectors
on the one screen. You'd use LCD shutter glasses for the quad bufferd
frame sequential stereo, or passive LCD polarizer glasses for the
dual independent channel type system.

Failing that, the best option with a CRT type setup is to use
quad-buffered frame sequential stereo with LCD shutter glasses.

For a flat panel LCD, you'd want to choose among one of the several
new stereoscopic display panels that are out these days. I don't have
much personal experience with these yet, but I'm hoping to get to test
a DTI display first-hand sometime soon.

There are various prototypes for very high-end stereoscopic displays
being planned by companies right now. I know that Kodak has a very
interesting laser projection stereoscopic display that they are working on
currently. I think its capable of projecting images a few tens of times
brighter than the brightest DLP system, from what I heard. Its not available
as a product yet however.

There are probably other displays I don't even know about, but all of the
mainstream options are definitely touched on in this email..

Let us know if you have more questions.

Thanks,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Fri, Nov 08, 2002 at 12:07:46PM -0800, Jill Vickery wrote:
> Hi!
> I am running VMD on a Windows XP PC using eye3D premium glasses for stereo
> (scanline interleaved). I notice that VMD supports many types of stereo,
> including crystal eyes. I was wondering which type of stereo provides the
> best stereo, including depth perception and resolution. If cost was no
> issue what stereo setup would be recommended?
>
> Also I have installed the latest greatest version (1.8.29a) on the XP
> machine. When I try to save the VMD session using "Save State" under the
> pull down File menu, it seems to go thru all the steps (naming file, etc.)
> but the file is never really written?? I can use the "save state" in the
> command line window, but I would like to get the pull downs to work. Any
> suggestions on what might be wrong?
>
> Thanks,
> 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