3D TV is closer than you think!

[Night Hacker]

This is REALLY kewl stuff! This isn't the same as those holographic TVs that was posted about a while ago. It uses an LCD screen and requires nothing to see it, just the 3D TV set or monitor. There are also 3D TV screens on cell phones now and they are already being sold. You can also already buy the monitors and I guess games like HL2 etc... can already be viewed with them.

NVidia already supports these 3D TVs with their stereo drivers you can download and games could already be viewed in 3D using one of these!

I don't know how they work exactly, but somehow they get certain pixels on the screen to only display to your right eye, and others to your left. I don't know how they manage that without any glasses. This is really kewl stuff.

http://www.forbes.com/infoimaging/2004/05/05/cx_pp_05053dtv_ii.html

[Spyd]

This is old news. These displays exist for some years now.
Here is a good article that explains how these displays work and show some high-end models.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/display/20050502/index.html

[Night Hacker]

Wow, great article, I really enjoyed reading it. I already knew how other forms of 3D worked, just those monitors, it's an interesting concept.

I have thought about buying some shutter glasses. At the moment, I use Red/Cyan glasses that are excellent quality, I got from http://www.aptronym.co.uk/3d for free and I live in Canada which was kewl that they mailed them to me anyhow. I can use the nVidia stereo driver and set it to Red/Cyan glasses and actually play any 3D game using them if I wish. I tested this with an opengl application I created and it worked fine. You have to adjust it a bit to get the settings right, but once you do, it's kind of kewl. Shutter glasses wouldn't be as hard on the eyes though.

[DudeMiester]

You know the best way te get out these new technologies is to develop a high end game for them, and bundle it with the monitor and only the monitor. Either that or have a discount coupon with the game. If you don't do something like that, I doubt we will see this kind of technology in the mainstream for a long time, if ever.

[Nessus]

It sounds pretty cool except that you cant turn the 3D off, viewing text and photos could be a nightmare. Maybe in the future we will have pixels that are on the ends of little fiber optic cables that can bend. This way your monitor could display straight ahead for normal use and then the pixels could shift for a 3D game.

[Night Hacker]

I believe near the end of that article they mention that Sony of Sanyo or one of them is developing a set (or has developed) where you can switch between 2D and 3D. I guess it uses cylinders that would turn or something, I forget. heh.

Higher resolution, much finer pixels with good head tracking would make this a viable technology. You can already watch games in 3D using nVidia's stereo driver, no need for a specially made game.

I have already used nVidia's driver to view my own 3D program in red/blue (red/cyan) anaglyph stereo. You can download the drivers, and order those free glasses I mentioned and view your favorite 3D game using red/cyan anayglyph mode. (red/cyan is better than red/blue)

[Nessus]

How much color do you loose when you use those glasses, I've only ever seen them used in old black and white movies.

I dont see why they cant write a program that would split the image in an FPS and make it look like it was shot with 2 camera's like a current 3d movie. Then you could just use the regular polarized glasses. Only problem is the scene may have to rendered twice, halving your framerate.

[Night Hacker]

nVidia's drivers may support those type of glasses, I don't know. They support shutter glasses, those 3D monitors and a variety of other devices including, as I mentioned, anaglyph glasses.

That's why it is better to use RED/CYAN instead of RED/BLUE, you have more colours as a result. I don't notice much loss at all, if any to be honest. I have thousand of stereo images I have downloaded from a newsgroup I frequent... alt.binaries.pictures.stereo (you should be able to see this newsgroup using Google's news service if you don't have a newsgroup reader like Agent)

Here's an example of a colour anaglyph, if you have the glasses, preferably RED/CYAN when viewing colour, it looks fine and you really get a sense of depth.

[Night Hacker]

There are two other types that are good for images and don't require glasses... this one is called JITTER 3D and merely uses an animated GIF to rapidly move between the two frames. Your brain will automatically percieve a sense of depth. It's kind of interesting...

http://home.cogeco.ca/~wandaroy/jitter.gif

and here is a pic of Duke3D using the nVidia drivers...

http://home.cogeco.ca/~wandaroy/duke3d_ana.jpg

[Night Hacker]

The other type of image that requires no equipment is called a CROSSEYED image. You see two images, when you cross your eyes you'll see three images, if you line them up properly the center image will be 3D. Once you line them up, wait a second and just watch the middle image, suddenly it will click in really clear (your brain thinks it's what your normally viewing). It's pretty kewl. I wouldn't want to play a game like this though, come out permanently crosseyed and angry, LOL. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Night Hacker]

The kewl thing is, you can actually create 3D images from videos on TV! If you see a video where the camera is panning from left to right (or right to left) you only need to grab two frames a couple microseconds apart then create a 3D image from them. I done this with a music video just to see if it would work and it did... here's my results...

(as you can see, the subject of 3D fascinates me http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif)

[Nessus]

Thanks for the pics and info. I've heard that shutter glasses are really immersive and they interest me but my monitor only goes to 85hz refresh rate.

So let me get this straight, you're not only viewing pics in 3d with the red/cyan glasses but you're also playing 3d shooters by enabling some Nvidia drivers? If so can you elaborate on the 3D experience a little as far as gaming goes? Ohh, and what do they cost?

[Night Hacker]

Once in a while I do, not always. The 3D glasses are merely RED/CYAN glasses, and they're free as I mentioned earlier. Just go to this website http://www.aptronym.co.uk/3d and order a pair, they'll mail them to you for free. They're the same type you get in a movie or something, except they're cyan instead of blue which is better for colour.

I have a pair that I bought, a pair of high quality looking glasses with special red/cyan lenses and a coating to reduce ghosting etc... but I found the cheaper looking carboard glasses I got in the mail from that website were much better quality.

I want to buy shutter glasses next, but I want to buy a 19 or 21" monitor first, which has a higher frequency. My old 19" monitor (which wasn't that old actually) screwed up on me and I had to buy a refurbished 17" IBM monitor (which turned out to be pretty good!), I'll probably buy a refurbished 19 or 21" next time. If it screws up, I'll loose alot less money. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif (CRT monitor of course, LCD monitors aren't good for this as their refresh rates are alot lower than CRTs)

You brought up a good point though, I wonder why some polorized technique hasn't been done with the nvidia stereo drivers. It would be easy for game companies (and cheap) to include 3D polorized glasses, which would be less stressful on the eyes than red/cyan and it would look pretty good.

Perhaps I'll email nvidia on this and post a message in alt.binaries.pictures.stero, see what the crew in there have to say. It's a great newsgroup. If you're interested in stereo pictures there's tons of them online and posted in that newgroup. I have hundreds I have collected. I once made a 3D outdoor pic my desktop, then when you put on the glasses it looked like the icons were floating far in front of the background. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Nessus]

Thanks for the info but I'm still interested if those red/cyan glasses work in modern 3d games and if so can you tell me a bit about the experience?

[Mr.Blud]

This always sounds so cool, but my right eye got injured when I was young, lost some of its vision, and I've never been able to use any of this cool stuff. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Night Hacker]

With the red/cyan glasses it is okay, you definately get a sense of depth, but it is hard on the eyes and is really only a novelty thing. I prefer to use it for still images the most.

I want shutter glasses, I played Doom using the nVidia drivers and the anaglyph glasses and it was pretty kewl. Hard on the eyes after a while and the red and blue colours in the game are a little funky as only one eye will see them.

I have a 17" monitor and the maximum frequency I played it at would have been 85Hz, which would have been halved for the game, but I didn't notice it. It seemed pretty smooth to me.

With shutter glasses they switch as fast as the frequency so you wouldn't notice that and without red or cyan, it would look normal except you would get a sense of depth. I'll be looking around for a pair for sure. The stereo drivers also come with an image viewer that view special images called .JPS images (which are basically JPG images, but a pair of them, side by side for stereo viewing), it allows you to view still images you can easily create using your glasses (shutter, 3D monitor or whatever).

[Nessus]

Shutter gasses interest me too but like I said my monitor only refreshes at 85hz and everyone seems to agree that that isn't enough. There was some guy in these forums that used to rave about them constantly is if he was getting paid to post. I think shutter glasses with a big widescreen monitor and surround sound could be the ultimate immersive gaming experience.

[Night Hacker]

Yeah, my old 19" monitor got good frequencies, I think up to at least 120hz, which would be perfect, halve that for the shutter glasses and you got 60hz. Plus I would think you would want a large screen anyhow to add more to the immersive experience.

I was already considering a 21" monitor, now this gives me more reason to grab one.

[Nessus]

I'm using a 21" flatscreen NEC CRT I got used from tigerdirect for like $240. The color isnt perfect though, I got a contract with it, I might force them to give me a new one.