Active Stereo

[Uptonian]

I have the opportunity to use an 'active stereo' screen. This is where the
screen flips and you can see real 3d when wearing shutter glasses. Is there any
way to interface Director 3D to such a system?

Nvida have a 3D to active stereo driver but I cannot get it to work.

I hope I am just missing something obvious but suspect it may not be possible.
Has anyone done this or does anyone have any thoughts?

Ian.

[tedalde2]

I'm currently trying a visor made by emagin that integrates 3D stereo,
head-tracking and a 800x600 view all in one. It uses "page-flipping" 3D and
requires specific drivers from Nvidia. The 3D stereo works, but I can't get it
to work with Director (yet). It may be a DirectX7 or OpenGL problem, in which
case there's not much hope. I'm working on it though.

There are a number of ways you could "fake" it on a monitor using other
methods with red/blue or polarizing glasses... it depends onwhich method works
best for you. The first step is to setup your 3D environment with cameras that
alternate views, like eyeballs do... have you got that far?

Check out the visor. If you can get the $$$, I recommend it:
[url]http://www.3dvisor.com/[/url]

[Uptonian]

Thanks for this.

The Nvidia drivers show the most promise but I am begining to suspect they
only work with 'full screen' game applications. I don't think - even when
filling the screen - that a Director projector works like a full Screen game. I
may be wrong though.

My latest researches have involved using two cameras to create a page flip. I
was thinking that if I could link it up to the infra red sync on shutter
glasses I may be in business. Of course this by-passes the monitor refresh
which may have all sorts of dire effects. I dont think it is possible to tap
into a monitor frame refresh from within Director? Could I do it with a
hardware gizmo? Will post anything I discover.

The thing I want to 3D is on the web. It is a sound reactive:
[url]http://www.ian-upton.com/Content/Bop[/url] Bang on a CD and have a 'live performance'
:-) Tell me what you think!

Ian.

[tedalde2]

I tried your demo but got "shockwave cannot continue..." errors. :(

Having Director interact with monitor frame refresh might be my issue also...
from what I understand, page-flipping 3D requires exact vsync timing to work
correctly. There are some directX calls that can be made... but I'm just
dabbling at this point. But I think xtra development may be in my future.

But man, stereo 3D on the emagin visor looks good when it works! The Nvidia
test application looks crystal clear, no artifacts or flickering at all. I
tried it with HalfLife2, and it works for about a minute before locking up my
system (Nvidia is developing new stereo drivers and I was using their beta
82.21 drivers).

Headtracking will be cool too. It works OK out-of-the box with "mouse
emulation". But to get true 6DOF headtracking, well... that looks like xtra
development too. I'm off-topic.

I'll post any good results that I get to this forum.

[Uptonian]

Shockwave can't continue? :-( Will check it out. The demo uses the additional
Xtra ASFFT which should be downloaded and installed. I only have tthe licence
for the Windows version so if you are looking on a mac...

I now have page flipping working. I am using Cyan and Red glasses and a red /
cyan page flip. It works :-) BUT frame sync is an issue. It makes the image
look as if it is flickering. I have seen this before and a frame lock would do
the business. I have never come across a way of frame syncing to the vertical
refresh in Windows let alone director. If this is possible through a directX
call or whatever and then ultimately through an xtra that would be amazing.
Anyone have any experience of this or know of such an Xtra?

"stereo 3D on the emagin visor looks good when it works" - When it works
stereo is quite incredible :-)

Ian.

[tedalde2]

This is getting way out of my scope, but dig around for info on directX and
creating a D3D device with a presentation interval set to
D3DPRESENT_INTERVAL_ONE. I understand this can alter the way rendering is
synched to refresh rates... but that's all I'll write about that topic. Might
get you started, though.