Edimensional 3D Glasses

Ry

Bit of a long one here so read it if you are interested otherwise don't bother

OK You're sitting there thinking "3D glasses HA! What a load of bull", which is exactly the thought I had before I did a little research. First here's the "spiel" they give you which actually made me buy them because I had been to Euro Disney land where they used the exact same technology in one of their attractions so I knew it would work. If you don't want to read it skip down passed it:

"The way humans percieve 3 dimensions and depth in images is through the use of both eyes, each of which sees a slightly offset view of a scene. The two slightly different views are fused by our brains in a way that creats our perception of depth.
The E-D system shows you a two-eye view of the world from your computer monitor. With the E-D system, depth-of-field is simulated using shutter-glasses with lenses that can alternate between clear and opaque(i.e.,blocks light). During use, a left-eye image is first displayed on a computer monitor, and the shutter-glasses' left lens is clear, while the right lens is dark. The image on the monitor is then switched to the right-eye view, and the lenses of the shutter-glasses are reversed. This switching occurs many times a second and your brain fuses these separate images into one truly 3-Dimensional image.
The switching of the images and the shutter-glass lenses is synchronised via a VGA dongle. If viewed by the naked eye, without the shutter-glasses, the display on the monitor will appear as a double image, and seem blurred.
The E-D system is self contained and easy to install and use. Thecomponents of the system include the E-D dongle, the E-D ifrared transmitter (wireless version only), and the E-D eyewear (shutter-glasses). Simply connect the E-D dongle between the computer and monitor, install the appropriate software and the E-D system converts the normal VGA PC display into a holographic display."

Ok Bumph over. Now from reading that you may or may not believe the true power of the glasses so here's my experience of them.

I ordered the glasses and they arrived within 5 working days. I opened the box and saw that the lenses were just like the glasses handed out in Euro Disney on the "Honey I shrunk the Audience" attraction which was basically a 3 D film thing. I Connected it all pretty easy to my PC. Connecting them will be easy for anyone who knows anything about connecting things to the back of their PC otherwise the manual tells you how. It's just as easy as building the toy in a Kinder Egg. Now comes the hard part. Installation is easy but then you have to tweak it a little until it works just right which is not that hard but is probably the hardest thing to be done. Then the fun begins.

I run the test given with the glasses immediatley burst into laughter as the famous NVIDIA logo moves towards my face and twirls in front of me while letters spelling nvidia do the same underneath. I try to reach out and grab the logo but my hand just floats through the air touching nothing. I put my hand up to the screen and before i feel the glass front of the monitor It actually looks like i could reach into the monitor and grab out one of the letters moving around on screen. I am now dying to try it out in a game so I open up one of the two games i have currently installed on my computer, it being Hitman 2 which seemed to be a good test to put it to. So I'm watching the Eidos intro coming into play and so far I'm not thinking much of it until it comes together and is sitting there looking at me. It falls into place and i can immediatley see the letters there in front of me again in full 3d. Unbelievable I think but that's just where it starts. Then the intro loads and I again start laughing because it is simple beyond words. This is how I would sum it up..."It's like a real cartoon in a small window in front of you that you could reach into and start grabbing the people and the objects." It is completely 3D and it looks like a film only more realistic because it isn't just flat on the screen." I then load up the first level and start walking around. I can look around and it looks completely real and everything has depth. Absolutely class. People look much more real because they have depth to them. Even when lying on the ground dead they look totally real.

I tried it on Jedi Knight 2 and The results were much the same. The characters all stand out from their surroundings while it looks like you are completely immersed in the 3D levels you travel through.
These glasses are excellent and definitley worth their money. I bought the wired glasses because i don't trust anything wireless because they generally need batteries and are usually faulty and dodgy. My glasses cost 85 euros which for 3D gaming is a pittance. These glasses are perfect for FPS' as they would give great depth perception as well as a huge increase on experience and fun. It wouldn't surprise me if all the CS players started using these to complement their special mouse surfaces etc. It would go well with Flashpoint CS UT2003 and one I am dying to try it out on Americas Army! The glasses will work with pretty much any game recently released and even old games too!

And If that's not enough there is addon software for another 60 which allows you to view your DvD's in full 3D also. That is my next purchase!!! Definitely worth a measly 86 yoyos!! Enjoy.

Edimensional Homepage

Ry

El Marco

Well I've actually known about these glasses for a while now, but I've never had the guts to even think about getting them, as through my experience things like that seem to end up being pants. But after hearing how good they really are, the urge to see what it is actually like to play with them is unbelievable
Battlefield 1942 and operation flashpoint would be the main games that would be in my mind to play first.

Wook

dvd's in 3D?
what you say the brand name was again , and where did you order it from ? Is the refresh rate fast enough for FPS ?

Matt Simis

Hmm, I was contemplating getting them too, but unfortunately two things stand in the way now:

1: They only work properly with nVidia cards. This used to be the case, although perhaps no more?

2: I have a TFT now, 3D of this type is impossible on a TFT.


Have you seen much of a performance hit in "3D" mode?



matt

KdjaCL

on one of my websites www.mohaa.com we got 2 free pairs to advertise them (in the bottom right hand corner) and i was impressed with them at 1st it really did look good BUT i then found out how evil they are i wear glasses so after wearing these 3d glasses for about 20 minutes i got severe headaches and blurred vision.

They do look good cept for the headaches and blurred vision i may have used them again.

kdjac

oeNeo

Sound great!

Barry Aldwell

Damn me and my TFT buying tendancies.

Ry

I linked to the homepage in my post at the end. The glasses need a minimum of 70hz refresh rate afaik to operate which any modern monitor can produce. If you have an ANCIENT monitor you are probably in trouble BUT one thing i didnt mention was you can send them back and they will refund your money which is another reason why i bought them. But I'm not sending mine back that's for sure! Also I haven't suffered any blurry vision or headaches and it say's on the manual if you do suffer that stuff stop using them and consult a physician. So if you can't use them send them back. I'm not sure if they work well or badly with cards other than Nvidia because I myself have a GeForce 4 but on the packaging and on the website there is a pretty comprehensive list of the types of cards it works with as follows:

3dfx Banshees, 3dfx Voodoo 2,3,4,5, ATI Radeon, ATI Rage128 & 128GL, ATI Rage128Pro, Intel i740, Intel i752, Intel i810, Matrox Millenium G200, G400, G450, NVIDIA Geforce 256, Geforce 2, Geforce 3, Geforce 4, NVIDIA TNT, TNT Vanta, NVIDIA TNT2, TNT2 Ultra, TNT2 M64, PowerVR Kyro 1, S3 Savage 2000, S3 Savage3D, S3 Savage 4.

Now if you don't fall into one of those categories what kind of ****in card have you got!?!?! The one downside to not having an NVIDIA card is that there is better support for nvidia chipsets ie driver support etc on the site but all those cards will work with them.

The Performance in 3D mode seems to be flawless because it's all run through the dongle that is connected between the monitor and the computer so there is minimal pressure on the computer itself. There is also hotkey functions to turn it on and off ctrl-T turns it on or off and as soon as you hit it the monitor blurs into the 3D mode for the glasses to put back together in 3D. I don't think it will affect FPS although i haven't tested it yet. I will install Americas army when i have the chance and then give it a try and perhaps Half Life.

I installed Red Faction to try it with that and it works a treat. There is no loss of gameplay at all and everything looks beautiful.

Ry

satchmo

70hz is far too low - you'll want at least 100hz, and preferably 120hz to prevent headaches and eye strain. Because the screen is flicking between one image and another, the refresh rate is effectively halved so the higher the better (try playing a game with a 35hz refresh rate). I've had a similar pair for about a year now, and they are great for wowing friends and fun to play with for a while, although your eyes do start to feel it soon. However these sort of glasses tend to suffer from ghosting, when a faint halo of one eye's image can be seen in the other eye. It's especially obvious with bright objects on a dark background. It's a little distracting, and can be quite frustrating.

They work by seperating the images according to the card's Z-buffer. This needs to be done at the driver level and is why they only work on nVidia cards, although some other manufacturers' drivers also support 3d glasses to varying degrees. nVidia have been good with providing stereo drivers for this sort of thing, and have even published a good article or two on stereo effects on their developer site. Since the seperation is done in hardware there's isn't really any noticable effect on the framerate as far as i can remember (haven't used them in a while).

I have had some problems (random flickering) with WinXP and my Elsa Revelator, and from what i can see other people have had similar problems. It might just be specific to those glasses, but if you're thinking of getting a pair, do your homework and make sure your setup will work properly with the glasses.

The best site i've found is stereovision.net, between the articles on that site and it's forums you should find out all you need.

BTW the 3D shows like those at Disneyworld and the like use a different form of 3D - they project two different images through polarizing filters onto a polarization-preserving screen, and the audience wear lightweight cardboard glasses with circular polarizing filters. It works a lot better than the shutter glasses, but the projection equipment required is bloody expensive!

l3rian

I just got a pair of these glasses today

They are really good, like SpiraL said, the first time you see that Nvidia logo burst out of the screen you will sh1t yourself laughing

The glasses themself look like dark sunglasses with a wire coming out of them, which connects to a new box on the wire from graphics card to monitor

Been playing GTA3 with them, and it works nicely, your car looks really real, like you could touch it, the city environment has depth and other cars and pedistrians seem to stand out better, overall it makes a good game better

I have lots of fps to try it out on, UT2003 and RTCW look great

I have gf4ti4400, 120hz at 1280 x 960 monitor, and experience no noticeable slowdown in any games

Shinji

If you ever get eyestrain, motion sickness or headaches from playing games, don't TOUCH these things with a bargepole. They're an incredibly cheap and nasty way of doing 3D and they do give serious migraine-style headaches to a lot of people.

Proper 3D can be done with direct projection into the retina or dual LCDs in front of the eyes. This cheap and not so cheerful approach is very little more than a gimmick.

Kevok

Direct projection onto the retina sounds pretty tasty. Any chance of it being available soon?

po0k

Originally posted by Jazz
70hz is far too low - you'll want at least 100hz, and preferably 120hz to prevent headaches and eye strain. Because the screen is flicking between one image and another, the refresh rate is effectively halved so the higher the better (try playing a game with a 35hz refresh rate).

Yeah, but in fairness, even 120Hz will give you ehadaches.
If you usually have your refresh set to 85Hz or above stay the christ away from these yokes, or else geta really high-end CAD monitor that can do 2KHz @ 9999999x9999999@1MBit colour depth etc.

Just one other thing.
Why would you want to view stuff on a monitor in 3d?
I don't imagine it would work all that well, going from a 3D source, projected onto a 2dPlane being expanded back into 3D again?
I'd say it'd have an effect on your actual rendered frame rate too.

Shinji

Direct projection onto the retina sounds pretty tasty. Any chance of it being available soon?

In commercial form? Sod knows. It's by far the best way of doing VR-style 3D, but there are a fair few pretty major technical hurdles to be dealt with before you could build it into a simple headset.

I'd imagine we'll see it in medical applications first; both in terms of allowing doctors and researchers to view and manipulate things in 3D (still one of the primary uses for all VR technology) and in terms of mapping the structure of patients eyes pre- and post-op.

Of course, if you want to get REALLY science-fiction, the eventual right way to do this will be to drop a biochip in behind your eyes squirting data directly onto the optical nerve. One day we'll all go through life with a HUD

po0k

Originally posted by Shinji
One day we'll all go through life with a HUD

God be with that day....