Subsections

5.3 Stereo

Both hardware and split-screen stereo displays are supported in the 3D display. Hardware stereo requires a graphics card that supports ``stereo in a window" display as well as the appropriate stereo glasses. The current version of hardware stereo has been successfully tested on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and SGI Irix using CrystalEyes glasses (from StereoGraphics).

In addition to the stereo-capable glasses, a CRT monitor with a high enough refresh rate is required. We recommend a refresh rate of at least 100 Hz (with 120 Hz being preferred) as the effective refresh rate of the monitor is halved due to the fact that the monitor has to swap two different scenes back and forth to create the stereo effect. Unfortunately, CRT monitors (in particular those with high refresh rates) are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain.

For those machines that do not support hardware stereo, split-sreen stereo is still a viable option. Both cross-eyed and wall-eyed views are available. Furthermore, the stereo angle and eye offset parameters can be adjusted in the preferences (see Chapter 11).

5.3.1 Microsoft Windows

We have every expectation that most high-end workstation-class graphics cards (e.g. 3DLabs Oxygen and Wildcat, NVIDIA Quadro, ATI FireGL) will support hardware stereo but we have not been able to test all of them. Furthermore, no testing has been done on Vista and as such, no guarantees can be made about stereo visualization on Vista.

One card that we did test which caused problems was the ATI FireGL V3200. There were no problems observed with the ATI FireGL V5000.

5.3.2 Mac OS X

Mac OS X has supported ``stereo in a window" visualization since late 2005 and as such hardware stereo is possible on a Mac, provided that the computer has an appropriate graphics card.

We have successfully test hardward stereo on a Mac Pro configured with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 graphics card (running both Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows via Boot Camp).

5.3.3 UNIX/Linux

Currently, the only UNIX platform (that we know of) that supports hardware stereo is SGI Irix. We have successfully tested hardware stereo on a number of different SGI machines. It is important to note that in order to properly view stereo on an SGI, the screen resolution must be set to a value that is appended with the letter `s'. For instance 1200x1024 would likely not behave correctly, whereas 1200x1024s would.

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