[Chimera-users] Fwd: Chimera 3-D viewing

[Dougherty, Matthew T]

Hi Ed,

It turns out it is a complicated answer depending on various factors.  I will outline some of the issues.

If you are doing a workstation only, that is not supporting a projector for a lot of users, the cheapest route is row interleave; zalman makes a display for $300, and uses cheap glasses ($1-$15) the same used in most movie theaters; no additional hardware.  The downside is you loose half your vertical resolution.  

If you are doing a workstation only and want maximum vertical resolution you will need to go with active glasses.  
There are several ways to make this happen: 
1) crystal eyes glasses ($300), quadro card ($1800), emitter ($100), CRT ($200-500); stereographics.com.  NuVision offers cheaper glasses.  Someday someone might offer a 120HZ compatible LCD display, this is not a technical problem.
2) active glasses ($150), Gforce card ($300), LCD 120 HZ monitor ($300), emitter ($50); only works on MS Windows, not sure if chimera supports this.  nvidia.com  Nothing is compatible with #1). someday may work with linux and mac.

If you are doing a workstation and want to support a projector, you got two options, passive and active using an in-focus projector ($5-6k).
You get full vertical resolution even if you are doing passive.  If you do passive you will need a polarizer ($5k) and cheap glasses ($1-15) same used in the most movie theaters.  If you do active you need a theater emitter ($500-1000) and active glasses ($200-300).  Either way you are going to need a quadro card ($1800) in your workstation.

In my lab we use all the methods except the polarizer, which is on order.  I find the Zalman approach the least hassle and most recyclable, but for conference room setting with a number of people the polarizer is most economical, what the movie theaters are gravitating to, and has less operational failures.

Matt
________________________________________
From: chimera-users-bounces at cgl.ucsf.edu [chimera-users-bounces at cgl.ucsf.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Pettersen [pett at cgl.ucsf.edu]
Sent: Monday, June 21, 2010 4:24 PM
To: Chimera BB
Cc: Edward Pate
Subject: [Chimera-users] Fwd: Chimera 3-D viewing

Forwarding Ed Pate's question (below) to this list, in the hope that someone who actually knows the answer can chime in!

--Eric

Begin forwarded message:

From: Edward Pate <edpate at hotmail.com<mailto:edpate at hotmail.com>>
Date: June 19, 2010 2:39:09 PM PDT
To: <pett at cgl.ucsf.edu<mailto:pett at cgl.ucsf.edu>>
Subject: Chimera 3-D viewing

Hi Eric:

I am looking into getting a new workstation for Chimera.  In the past, we have gotten CRT displays in order to do 3-D visualization.  Could you recommend other display options that are available now and that users have been happy with?  Is a CRT still the best option?

Thanks for the help.

Ed