Stereo 'shutter glass' viewing on Flat Panel displays

I have read that Stereo ‘shutter glasses’ can be used with Flat Panel displays, but there is a difference in how you code to the video drivers.

Can anyone illuminate on the differences in coding required for CRT vs Flat Panel display? (for stereo viewing)

By flat panel display, I suppose you mean LCD display ? From what I have read on the web, it seems that LCD displays are not really appropriate for shutter glasses because of remanence. I have tried with my glasses (Stereographics Simuleyes VR) and the result was a little less convincing than on CRT displays, but the effect was still there.

But I don’t think there should be any difference between CRT and LCD for the code. Where did you read about that ?

The real problem is the refreshrate… a standard LCD maximizes at 75Hz, that will be 37.5Hz per eye, which can seam ok, but think about the fact that every other frame is totaly black ( or should be for that eye) so you will experience flickering. often its recommended atleast 100Hz, more is better, to get a nice 3d effect with shutterglasses. But if you can stand the flickering, then LCD should work in most cases.

LCDs won’t work with shutter glasses because

  • the refesh rate is too low (at least 120 Hz or more touches ergonomic requirements, flat panels have 60 Hz or less).
  • the afterglow is too long (you get more crosstalk).
  • the displays are polarized (depending on display-shutter combination you might not get the full brightness or worse may experience different brightness on each eye.)

But LCDs are used in passive stereo solutions because of their fixed pixel grid. Having a prism lens or a diffusor in front of the screen devides pixel columns for left and right eye. (These are very expensive monitors only usable for stereo viewing.)

[This message has been edited by Relic (edited 04-02-2003).]

> LCDs won’t work with shutter glasses

I think it’s a little bit quick to say that. Like I said before, I tried my shutter glasses with an LCD display (on a laptop) and it works. Maybe it’s not the best use of shutter glasses, but the 3D effect is present.

> at least 120 Hz or more touches ergonomic requirements

Maybe it depends on which type of application you want to use. For games, you can see the 3D effect on a 60 Hz LCD or CRT display, even if the flickering is quite heavy. You can reduce it by diminishing your monitor brightness or lowering room lighting. For medical imagery, the requirements may be higher, I don’t know. But in this case, I suppose you need top quality shutter glasses too.

Well it’s good to see such a healthy response to my inquiry! I didn’t know if you guys were much into shutter-glasses.

I read about the possible ‘differences’ on the nVidia website (in a ‘how to’ on stereo viewing) , but wasn’t really sure what I was reading (I was in a hurry). So I thought I’d better let ‘open discussion’ settle the matter (quicker to ask someone who’s done it, than to research myself to death).

I also have those SimulEyes VR glasses, too bad StereoGraphics isn’t supporting them much these days. I’ve been planning to change over to the eDimensional 3D glasses to see if they work any better, and since I might be getting a flat-panel monitor (I’d like 1600 x 1280, but too pricey, so I’ll settle for 1280 x 1024). Too bad the screen resolution isn’t as high as a CRT, but I do like the crisper pixels.

Still, my current project needs 3D stereo viewing, and so I needed to ask about the compatibilities with flat-panel displays.

Thanks for the input,

Steve

> I also have those SimulEyes VR glasses,
> too bad StereoGraphics isn’t supporting
> them much these days.

Maybe you don’t know, but you can use your Simuleyes glasses with a lot of games on Windows if you own an Nvidia graphic card. You just need to download the latest stereo drivers from Nvidia and edit the registry as explained in this page :
http://www.stereo3d.com/news/news0062.html

You can even modify the registry to handle other games or your own applications, but it’s not very simple.