From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 25 2013 - 16:36:54 CST

Hi guys,
  I'm a bit swamped, but I wanted to chime in briefly:
I'm not a big fan of the currently available passive stereo options
for desktop displays. All of the passive or autostereoscopic desktop
type displays I've seen to date lose half of the horizontal or vertical
resolution in trade for the stereo image. If we were starting with a 4K
image, that wouldn't be so bad, but we're usually not. Also, most of the
passive displays drop the alternating columns or rows in such a way that the
host machine's video driver is completely unaware of it, and so GUI menus
and other text becomes largely illegible. For this reason, I have
(up to the present time) found desktop passive displays unsuitable for
day-in-day-out work in tools like VMD that contain many GUI menus,
and I have greatly preferred active stereo systems that show full-resolution
images, despite the annoying glasses.

For projection systems, things are quite different, as it is possible
to build passive stereo projection systems that have no drawbacks
in terms of resolution, by using two traditional non-stereo projectors,
driven by an NVIDIA Quadro running in "clone mode" stereo. We've got such
a system here, and we like it very much.

Cheers,
  John

On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 03:18:12PM +0100, Axel Kohlmeyer wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 2:13 PM, Marcel UJI (IMAP) <arzo_at_uji.es> wrote:
> > Hello
> >
> > I'm considering purchasing a 3D monitor to use with VMD in linux. I found
> > that Nvidia 3D vision equipment (monitor+glasses) are considerably more
> > expensive than equivalent FPR ( Film-type Patterned Retarder) monitors +
> > (passive) glasses. Has anyone experience with 3D equipment in VMD?
>
> yes, there should be several folks subscribed to this list that can
> talk about their experiences.
>
> >
> > I'm particularly concerned with:
> >
> > - When not using 3D glasses does any of those technologies affect the 2D
> > resolution or general quality of the image??
>
> yes and no. in stereo mode, you will have the two images for left and
> the right eye displayed at the same time. in the first case they are
> shown as alternating (full picture) frames and in the second case in
> alternating scan lines. that means, you will have to turn stereo mode
> off. but then the image will be normal.
>
> > - Is VMD in linux supporting both types of 3D technologies??
>
> yes.
>
> > I know that FPR uses half of the pixels for each eye, but they are
> > "combined" later when forming the image so the final quality should be OK.
> > Is that true??
>
> no. it is "ok" for large and dense objects, but letters and thin lines
> look funny, often bordering on being unreadable since each eye sees a
> different half of the picture.
> you can get an impression by clicking on
> "Display->Sterep->RowInterleaved" or
> "Display->Sterep->ColumnInterleaved"
>
> > My computer has a Nvidia Quadro 4000, so presumably both of them should be
> > supported.
>
> yes.
>
> axel.
>
> > Thank you in advance for your suggestions
> >
> > Marcel
> >
> > --
> > Dr. Marcel Aguilella-Arzo
> > Professor Titular d'Universitat, Física Aplicada
> > Departament de Física
> > Escola Superior de Tecnologia i Ciències Experimentals
> > Universitat Jaume I
> > Av. Sos Baynat, s/n
> > 12071 Castelló de la Plana (Spain)
> > +34 964 728 046
> > arzo_at_fca.uji.es
>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Axel Kohlmeyer akohlmey_at_gmail.com http://goo.gl/1wk0
> International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste. Italy.

-- 
NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/           Phone: 217-244-3349
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/       Fax: 217-244-6078