starting stereo

OpenGL OpenGL: Basic Coding
1

Good morning! This is my first post so I will post it to both the beginning and advanced since I don’t know which is appropriate:
I am trying to write a stereo program using both the BACK_LEFT and BACK_RIGHT buffers, then do SWAPBUFFERS, for viewing with LCD glasses. I am using an Invidia TNT2 board and get an error when I try to run the program. I am using VC++6.0 in console mode and GLUT_STEREO as a flag to glutInitDisplayMode. It compiles and links but fails ( apparently at glutCreateWindow ) with the error: GLUT: pixel format with necessary capabilities not found. When I use code from CH. 17 of SuperBible ( as a Petzold-type window ) it runs but doesn’t show both images (created in BACK_LEFT and BACK_RIGHT ), only one.
Is my TNT2 board preventing me from seeing the stereo with glasses? Would an Oxygen VX1-stereo card ( or better ) allow me to do it, or is something wrong ( or missing ) from my code?
Thank you,
Barry

2

I tried to do that too.
http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/Forum2/HTML/001896.html

If you want to use your TNT2 for stereoscopy, you can still draw interlaced images using the stencil buffer (follow the links) and use an interlaced video mode.

As I don’t think that the TNT2 supports interlaced modes, you’ll have to build a line-blanker.

Not to forget the controller for your shutter glasses (use VSYNC signal for synchro).

And yes, you’d better use an Oxygen VX1 in order to achive stereoscopy if what I suggest above scared you .

PS: You can also wait for nVidia to release a driver with stereo buffers support. But as there is no chance for us to know the date for this release (if release there is ), I wouldn’t bet on that solution.

3

Detonator 9.x (beta) as well as gldirect (also beta) support stereo buffers
Joe

4

Where can you find the Detonator 9.x drivers?
I need them badly !!!

And what’s gldirect?

5

Sorry, My mistake, it was 7.x, not 9. The file I downloaded was
win-9x-me-717.zip but I havn’t been able to find a reference to it since.
GLdirect is from SciTech. They managed to get stereo by creating an OpenGL wrapper around DX. Version 2.0 (beta)
Review and links can be found at http://www.stereovision.net/reviews/gldirect/gldirect.htm
Joe

wait…
Here’s the article I found on detonator http://www.stereovision.net/toxicx/717_2.htm
and a new one http://www.stereovision.net/toxicx/1050info.htm
Enjoy :]

6

Thanks a lot !

That’s some great piece of news you’ve got there for me!
If I had known that the Detonator 7.17 had stereo support, I would have tracked them a lot sooner !!!

Thanks again

7

Arrgh !!!

There doesn’t seem to be a version for WinNT
(sniff!).
Do you know if any other release version (like 7.52 which has a NT version) support stereo?

8

Try 10.5 http://www.stereovision.net/toxicx/1050info.htm
It Might have NT support. Did you check out the GLDirect beta?
Joe

9

I’d like to thank all of those above for their replies. I can’t afford a performance penalty ( I’ve been given a model with 1/4 million polys to try to make into stereo ) so I don’t want to go the driver route with the nvidia card.
As a continuation of this topic, where can I find information about how drivers do the stereo work for the card? I’ve never programmed a driver before and I’d like to know how this is possible. Is there a book that shows how, or a page on the web with an explanation?
Thanks,
Barry

10

You DON’T have to program the driver !!!

You program your stereo application in OpenGL, and then it depends on the driver you have installed whether or not your video card will support stereoscopy.

The driver is like an interface between your application and the video card, it is needed on any kind of video card simply because the card doesn’t know what OpenGL is ! It’s up to the driver to make OpenGL work on your card.

The driver is provided by the manufacturer of your card (or of the 3D chip). You don’t have to program it yourself (I think you’d have some problems to do that if you don’t have access to confidential data from nVidia ). You don’t even have to program specifically for a version of driver. Just use stereo buffers in OpenGL. Then if your driver supports stereo buffers, fine, you’ll achieve stereoscopy. If not, you won’t.

For nVidia GFX cards, you can try using the leaked 7.17 drivers since they appear to have stereo support. Of course there is a performance penalty since you have to draw the stuff twice (and maybe some other issues due to the architecture of the video chip), but that’s inevitable and you’ll get the same penalty on the Oxygen card (which by the way also needs a driver like any other video card). Using a driver doesn’t mean that your app will not be hardware accelerated. The driver might implement some features as hardware accelerated features or use software emulation. For the stereo buffers, this is obviously hardware.

Since you have a nVidia board, I’d recommend that you tried the driver 7.17 before deciding to buy another piece of hardware (still, remember that this is an unofficial beta version).