[Chimera-users] Stereo on the 1.2304 version

[Greg Couch]

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006, Anna Feldman-Salit wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Unfortunately, I'm facing with a problem of stereo option on the version
> 1.2304.
>
> I can see the stereo when I turn the "stereo" option on, but the quality 
> of the picture is not of the best ones. The main picture is likely 
> screened on background, while it's also impossible to focus on the 
> frontal part. I was playing a bit with camera-viewing parameters, but 
> nothing worked for me. Before, working with pymol I used the "swap 
> sides" option, which helped a lot. I tested our stereo glasses with 
> pymol's stereo option again and it works smoothly.
>
> Since I definitely prefer to work with chimera, I would appreciate if 
> this problem would be solved somehow. Do you have any suggestions?
>
> Thank you in advance!
>
> Best,
>
> Anna

If you need a "swap eyes" option with PyMol, then you need the same option 
in chimera, but it doesn't exist.  Instead, chimera expects that you to 
configure the stereo graphics driver to do that for all applications. 
For instance, the Windows NVidia Quadro graphics driver has an option to 
"Swap eyes" that is off by default -- it's hard to find, show the 
"Performance & Quality Settings" panel for your graphics card (in the 
Display Properties / Settings / Advanced dialog), and change to the 
"Advanced settings" view, and scroll down to the "Swap Eyes" option.

Right now, the best way to adjust the viewing parameters is to use the 
"View All" button in the Sideview or Actions/Focus on a selection, that 
centers stuff so that the center is on the plane of the screen.  Then 
scale everything up as much as you want.  Since, in stereo, many people 
have problems converging on stuff in front of the screen, you might need 
to translate everything back (ie., +z axis) a little bit.  You should also 
look at 
<http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimera-users/2006-May/000779.html> for 
programming ways to change the stereo viewing parameters.

Adjusting the chimera viewing parameters will become easier in the next 
release.  I've added an advanced mode to the Sideview that converts it to 
a top view so you can see the stereo eyes in relationship to the screen. 
And the plane of the screen, shown as a dotted line, can be moved.  You 
will also be able to change the eye separation and distance to the screen 
with the mouse.

 	Hope this helps,

 	Greg Couch
 	UCSF Computer Graphics Lab