[Chimera-users] Setup for 3D workstations?

[Dougherty, Matthew T]

Hi Kenward,


I work with S3D extensively, for operations and development.

Navigating this can be tricky.  Up until recently there have been few standards, making it more like standing on shifting sands dumping money into a pit.

The only reliable standard is HDMI 1.4, which at best will get you a max resolution of full 1080p.
Using chimera in DTI (side-by-side stereo3D), outputting the graphics as HDMI you are guaranteed half 1080p, the loss is on the horizontal.
This will work on consumer grade monitors and projectors, but you have to manually select SBS in your HDMI sink.  
The sony vll-hw40 ($2400) uses IR playstation-3 glasses; ($20) similar to my setup.
I also do IR and passive; have gone through almost 10 systems in 20 years.

If you do not go with HDMI, you are on your own, or one-off vendor's options.
You can still buy monitors (20-30 inch) which typically use nvidia glasses.
We have a visio 80" in the conference room that is passive; people tend to like them because they are lighter and no battery; but you loose vertical resolution.

If you want full 1080p you will need to use the frame-pack option; this is what blu-ray uses and what I produce in.
This is not a current option in chimera, but we are talking about it and I am developing sw.  For movie making I generate in full 1080p and composite a frame pack image playable in quicktime, etc.
There are some technical things I won't get into, other than to say the sony projectors will automatically switch into S3D when presented a display of 1920x2205; some monitors do not, and by theHDMI  standard they are not required to; expect no help from vendors on this.
If you buy a monitor/projector like that you are  stuck, because they normally will not allow manual intervention to switch to frame pack.

Also sequential stereo is going away, apple dropped quadro support; most vendors think of it as top/bottom stereo.  Full T/B is not in the core HDMI 1.4 spec as mandatory, it is an optional compliance with a lot of other S3D formats like quincunx which is supported by visio, but out of business.

I would recommend you build a requirements list and where you want to be in one to five years.
>From that I can give you more suggestions.

One final note, the S3D market is in contraction, getting the correct vendor is crucial if you do not want to get stuck with a boat anchor.


Matthew Dougherty
National Center for Macromolecular Imaging
Baylor College of Medicine
===========================================================================
________________________________________
From: chimera-users-bounces at cgl.ucsf.edu [chimera-users-bounces at cgl.ucsf.edu] On Behalf Of Kenward Vaughan [kay_jay at earthlink.net]
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 1:34 AM
To: chimera-users at cgl.ucsf.edu List
Subject: Re: [Chimera-users] Setup for 3D workstations?

To (hopefully) clarify...

On 07/27/2014 10:42 PM, Kenward Vaughan wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I apologize if this is skewed for the list; please correct me if so.
...
> with something like an Inspiron T5610, using an nVidia K4000 card.

I don't know if this card fits what is needed for sequential stereo. :(


> I was thinking that the nVidia 3D vision system made sense, but honestly
> don't know if that would work with 10 different ones going at once.  I
> am unfamiliar with other options.

Having read the Chimera documentation online, I don't know if the
interleaved approach is ideal for people working together in a group
("This works well for a single viewer.").  Is this still true with newer
monitors (wider angles, etc.)?

Since we have the money (big spillover from last year in a grant, and we
need to spend it quickly) (tough situation, right??), I figured to go
ahead with the sequential approach.

But if not the nVidia system, what then?

Of course, the passive glasses approach might still be best, as it seems
that people couldn't move from screen to screen (seeing others work)
without switching glasses.  ???

Hate the idea of losing resolution though.  The students may not
recognize the difference, of course.


> Would someone help me with this?  There would be two or three students
> at each station, FWIW. Am I out in left field in my thinking?


Heh.  Still feel out of the ballpark.  Maybe the same city??


Kenward
--
In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be
*teachers* and the rest of us would have to settle for something less,
because passing civilization along from one generation to the next
ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone
could have.     - Lee Iacocca

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