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1. INTRODUCTION Only a few years ago, seeing in 3-D meant peering through a pair of red-and-blue glasses, or trying not to go cross-eyed in front of a page of fuzzy dots. It was great at the time, but 3-D technology has moved on. Scientists know more about how our vision works than ever before, and our computers are more powerful than ever before -- most of us have sophisticated components in our computer that are dedicated to producing realistic graphics. Put those two things together, and you'll see how 3-D graphics have really begun to take off. Most computer users are familiar with 3-D games. Back in the '90s, computer enthusiasts were stunned by the game Castle Wolfe stein 3D, which took place in a maze-like castle. It may have been constructed from blocky tiles, but the castle existed in three dimensions -- you could move forward and backward, or hold down the appropriate key and see your viewpoint spin through 360 degrees. Back then, it was revolutionary and quite amazing. Nowadays, gamers enjoy ever more complicated graphics -- smooth, three-dimensional environments complete with realistic lighting and complex simulations of real-life physics grace our screens. But that's the problem -- the screen. The game itself may be in three dimensions, and the player may be able to look wherever he wants with complete freedom, but at the end of the day the picture is displayed on a computer monitor...and that's a flat surface.
3-D PC glasses are designed to convince your brain that you are seeing a real, threedimensional object. 1.1 Seeing in Three Dimensions
Human beings, like most other creatures, are equipped with two eyes, situated close together and side by side. This positioning means that each eye has a view of the same area from a slightly different angle. You can check this out by focusing on a distant object and viewing through each eye alternately -- see how some things seem to change position slightly? The brain takes the information from each eye and unites them into one picture, interpreting the slight differences between each view as depth. This produces a threedimensional picture: one with height, width and depth.
It is the added perception of depth that makes 3-D, or stereoscopic, vision so important. With stereoscopic vision, we see exactly where our surroundings are in relation to our own bodies,
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usually with considerable precision. We are particularly good at spotting objects that are moving toward or away from us, and the positioning of our eyes means we can see partially around solid objects without needing to move our heads. It's easy to see why some people believe stereoscopic vision evolved as a means of survival. Certainly, stereoscopic vision is vital for seemingly simple actions such as throwing, catching or hitting a ball, driving or parking a car, or even just threading a needle. That's not to say such tasks can't be managed without 3-D vision, but a lack of depth perception can make these everyday tasks much more complex.
Stereograms, also known as Magic Eye pictures, use seemingly-random patterns of dots but rely on the viewer to cross his eyes in just the right way, or to look through the image until the eyes see just the right part and allow the brain to decode the hidden depth information. Both methods have their disadvantages, of course -- the red-and-blue glasses make it difficult to show color in the 3-D image, and viewing stereograms is an art in itself. Neither method is entirely suitable for playing games. Nevertheless, the underlying principle is exactly the same: creating and controlling those two different points of view. But just how easy is it to create these two separate images, one for each eye? The answer is all about how games are created. Not so long ago, the graphics we saw on our computer screens were carefully drawn into the computer -- every single frame of animation, every different view of a character. If you wanted a dinosaur in your game, you sat down and drew the different views of a dinosaur into the computer.
Nowadays, games designers sit down with a 3-D graphics package and design their dinosaur in three dimensions. Once that's done, they needn't worry about the different views -the computer has a 3-D model of the dinosaur in its memory, and the game simply works out where the player is looking and draws the correct view of the dinosaur using the 3-D model. In fact, everything you see on your screen in a modern 3-D game is produced the same way; the game is like a gigantic 3-D model. The computer works out what it needs to display on your screen and generates the appropriate view. Since the computer is quite happy to create one point of view, there's no problem shifting the viewpoint slightly and creating another point of view. And after that, all you need is a way to get the correct image to the correct eye.
2.1.Getting Synched
It's all down to the power of liquid crystal displays, or LCD. Just like the liquid crystal in a watch can be changed from transparent to black, the lenses of PC 3-D glasses can be transparent or opaque. In other words, the glasses can control which eye sees the image on the screen, and with careful timing you've got perfect 3-D. Here's how it happens: 1.The images are prepared by the computer and displayed. Two images are generated, representing the views seen by each eye:
2.While the left view is presented, the right eye is blocked by the LCD glasses. Similarly, when the right view is presented, the left eye is blocked.
All of this happens so quickly that the brain is entirely unaware of the two images merging together into a stereoscopic view. This is the same thing as when we watch a film using an old film projector and the sequence of still images flickering onto the screen merges together to form a movie.
3.1Buying
Although the basic technology is the same, there is a range of different glasses out there. You'll find lightweight, wireless glasses, as well as more basic (and therefore cheaper) pairs.
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The view through the glasses depends more on your computer's graphics card than the make of glasses, but you will find that different manufacturers offer extra software or other minor incentives. The lesson is: Shop around! If you get the chance to try a pair out before buying, don't hesitate -- try to imagine wearing them for an hour of intensive gaming. You might want to put in the extra money for a slightly better model.
EDimensional, E-D and the eDimensional logos are registered trademarks of eDimensional, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Bear in mind, too, that all glasses come with the standard video game warning concerning epilepsy, eye-strain and tiredness. If you generally find it difficult to cope with a standard flat monitor, you will definitely want to try out the glasses before you buy. Be wary also if you have an LCD flat-panel monitor, because current 3-D glasses don't work well with this kind of monitor. Be sure to check compatibility before you buy. Check out exactly which kind of video card you have (manufacturer and model) and do a little bit of research before you make your purchase. The X-Force 3D Game Glasses, for example, will only work with nVidia video cards. Many glasses will work with various graphics cards, but the only way to tell for sure is to read the side of the box carefully.
In the past few years, filmmakers have taken this attempt to recreate three-dimensional space on screen one step further. With digital 3-D, animators can fool your eyes and brain into thinking that they're looking into a 3-D space rather than at a 2-D screen. The end result is like looking through a window into a real, three-dimensional world or like having elements of the scene in the theater with you. While it's similar to older 3-D movies, the technology is considerably more advanced.
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Both old and new 3-D movies rely on quirks of human vision to create deep, panoramic scenes or objects that seem to fly from the screen. Human beings have binocular vision -- each eye sees a different image, and the brain combines them into a single, unified picture. The brain uses the slight difference in angle between the two images, known as parallax, to help it perceive depth. This is why people who lose their sight in one eye have trouble judging distances. Old 3-D movies used anaglyph images to take advantage of binocular vision and parallax. These images include two color layers in a single strip of film shown from one projector. One layer is predominately red, and the other is predominately blue or green. To watch the movie, you wear 3-D glasses with one red lens and one blue or green lens. These lenses force one eye to see the red part of the image and the other eye to see the blue or green part. Because of the differences between the two, your brain perceives them as one image with three dimensions. However, because of the use of color-filtering lenses, the color of the final image isn't accurate. This type of 3-D technology has also caused some people to experience headaches, eye strain and nausea.
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images, which do not require glasses in order to be viewed. EIZO's glasses-free 3D monitor comes with two DVI-D interfaces and one VESA Stereo Sync port and, beside 1080p resolution, provides a pixel pitch of 0.2655mm x 0.2655mm. The display allows users to select the language, the power light, reset, brightness, contrast, digital gain, gamma, color temperature, tint, color depth, while some physical adjustments (tilting and 360-degree swiveling) are also possible. We'll also have to mention that the device measures 650 x 261.7x 566.3mm and weighs 16kg, which means that carrying it around is not exactly advisable. As far as pricing and availability details are concerned, EIZO is a bit vague, the company mentioning however that we should expect this advanced display 3D display solution to start shipping in the first half of 2011,
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the back, one for the monitor in the middle, the larger circular one for the wireless transmitter and the other smaller silver connection for the wired glasses to plug in directly. Currently the dongle only supports a VGA connection, not DVI. Transmitter - The transmitter for the wireless glasses plugs directly in to the dongle. We suggest placing the transmitter on the top of the monitor. Make sure it faces you so that you have a direct line of sight from the glasses to the transmitter. Keep in mind that the transmitter does not light up to show you it is on. The two bulbs use infrared which is invisible and harmless to the human eye. PC Monitors CRT vs LCD A CRT monitor is a thick and heavy monitor with a glass front. If you have a large monitor that takes 2 hands to lift, this is most likely a CRT.An LCD monitor is a thin monitor that has a plastic-like material for the screen and can typically be lifted easily with one hand. You will need to know whether you have a CRT or LCD monitor when installing the drivers. You can also consult your monitor user manual for more information. Projectors - Some customers report success with DLP (not LCD) projectors. We do not officially support projectors with the 3D glasses. For information on purchasing special stereoscopic projectors, please contact the eDimensional sales department. Video Card To determine which brand of video card you have, please open your Windows Control Panel and double click on the Display icon. Click on the Settings tab and the Advanced button. Select the Adapter tab where you will find the brand of video card you have. You will need this information when installing the drivers.
plugged in correctly, the gaming software needs to be installed properly before you can view PC games in 3D. You will need to determine if you have a nVidia GeForce graphics card or another type and whether you have a CRT or LCD monitor. If you do not know this information, please review the previous section. If you have an nVidia graphics card and are using a CRT monitor, please see the following nVidia section. For all other video cards and/or if you have an LCD monitor, please see the "eDimensional Universal Driver" section below. As you install the gaming drivers from the eDimensional CD, you will be prompted to answer whether you have an nVidia card and a CRT monitor. Please answer these questions accurately to ensure the proper software is automatically installed to your computer.
NVidia - Remember, if you have an LCD monitor you cannot use the nVidia drivers at the current time, even if you have a nVidia graphics card. Making sure you are using CRT and nVidia, there is a 3D glasses driver for nVidia cards, but you need to also install the corresponding video card driver for it to work properly.
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The 3D glasses driver is called the stereo driver. Stereo, or stereoscopic means "two" and with 3D it means each of the "two" eyes have a different view of the computer. nVidia users need to update your video card drivers as well as your nVidia stereo drivers so that they match. For example, if you install the 71.89 video card drivers, you will need to install the 71.89 stereo drivers as well. It will NOT work if these drivers do not match. This is one of the most common mistakes. To find the most recent video and stereo drivers, go to eDimensional.com and click on the Support tab at the top then click on Software Updates. To customize and configure the nVidia stereo drivers, go to the Windows control panel and double-click Display. Then click the Settings tab at the top and press the Advanced button. Click the GeForce tab and you will notice a menu open on the left. Click on Stereo Properties and choose Enabled then click Apply to apply the changes. A message will come up telling you to close all DirectX and OpenGL applications, to which you can press OK. If a test image appears, press the Esc on your keyboard. Answer YES when it asks if you have seen the smaller square. Now the software driver is set up and ready to use with your games. Start a game and the 3D will start automatically. NVidia driver hotkeys Ctrl + T - 3D on/off Ctrl + F3 - Decrease 3D Ctrl + F4 - Increase 3D Ctrl + F6 Slight Decrease Ctrl + F5 Slight Increase Alt + G - Gamma Darker Ctrl + G - Gamma Brighter EDimensional Unviversal Drivers - If you have any other type of video card including ATI, Intel, etc. and/or an LCD monitor you will use the eDimensional drivers. The eDimensional Universal Drivers do not have the same control panel as the nVidia drivers, so you will not need to goin to the display properties area. Simply make sure the
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eDimensional icon is running in the taskbar located in the bottom right hand corner of your screen by your clock. You can find the settings by right mouse clicking on the icon and selecting Settings. EDimensional Driver hotkeys: F5 - 3D on F4 - 3D off F7 - More 3D Shift + F7 - Less 3D F6 - Less 3D close-up Shift + F6 - More 3D close-up F8 - Swap left and right eye Starting the Effect - When a game starts you will need to turn the 3D effect on. The hotkey to turn the glasses on for nVidia drivers is CTRL+T and for eDimensional drivers the hotkey is F5. To turn it off press CTRL+T again for nVidia and the F4 key for eDimensional. When the 3D is turned on, the images on the screen should appear slightly blurry or doubled to the naked eye. This is the correct 3D format to be viewed with the 3D glasses. See the section for "Optimizing Your System" below for advanced options and further instructions on how to adjust your settings to get a better effect. Putting On the Glasses - When using the glasses keep in mind you will need something "3D," such as a PC game, on the monitor before a 3D effect is apparent when looking through the glasses. Simply plugging the glasses in and installing the software will not create a general 3D effect on your monitor. The glasses work as a filter for what you see on your monitor. When something is "3D" you will know because it will look blurry or doubled without the glasses on. If you have ever seen a 3D movie in the theater this is the same concept. If for some reason you are not seeing 3D, view our troubleshooting guide in the following section. Optimizing Your System, Tips and Troubleshooting
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The first thing you should learn is how to search our knowledge base for answers. This is the most essential and easiest way to find 99% of the answers to any hardware or software question. Go to www.eDimensional.com and click on the Support tab at the top, then to the knowledge base. You will be able to browse through the categories or find answers by searching. You can type a keyword in to the search box then hit search. For instance if your screen was dark you could type the word 'dark' and it will come up with what you're looking for. - The hotkeys are very important if you want the image to look best on the screen. The game starts with a default 3D setting that can and should be adjusted using these hotkeys for personal preference. You can find a list of hotkeys above in the section for your driver setup. - When a game has a graphical anomaly, it may just be a particular object that is not rendering correctly in 3D. If available, game specific fixes are typically noted in the knowledge base. Visit our online knowledge base and click on the 3d glasses section. Click on "Game Specific" and if your game is listed we will provide any game-specific information there. If not, there are general fixes that may help. There are also several popular 3D forums such as Stereovision.net or Stereo3d.com where users share specific game settings. - Because rendering in 3D is more resource-intensive, it is possible to notice a slight decrease in frame rates when playing some graphics-intensive titles. The best way to keep your games running smoothly is to always use the latest eDimensional software and update your computer hardware the same way you normally would to improve overall performance with the latest games. If updating the hardware is not an option, you can still keep your games running smoothly with a few adjustments. One thing you can do is lower the resolution to decrease the amount of memory required for the game to function. Lowering textures and details will help get it running faster because not as many complicated calculations are required by the video card. We suggest gradually increasing the graphical settings to obtain your preferred mix of performance and graphical detail, as you would with any game.
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- Another common question is how to optimize the refresh rate in order to decrease the amount of visible shuttering in the glasses. Most people refer to this as flickering on the screen. The optimal refresh rate is 80hz or higher, although you can still use the glasses at a lower refresh rate with no problem. There are also free programs available such as refresh force (http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rf/) which allow you to manually raise your refresh rates - To achieve optimal viewing performance while using this product, darken the room as much as possible by dimming your lights, lowering window shades and/or closing curtains. Ambient light from sources other than your monitor can lessen the 3D effect and increases your perception of the shuttering effect created by your 3D glasses. - If you are having trouble getting the glasses to work you need to first determine which part of the two parts is not working, the hardware or the software. You will know if the problem is with the software because the screen does not appear blurry when 3D is turned on inside of a game. It is possible that the problem could be with that particular game. For testing purposes it's best to try a popular mainstream game like Halo, Freelancer or Unreal Tournament 2004 There are demos available at popular websites like www.3dgamers.com and others. Most games will work, but not every game will work with every single video card. Newer games typically work with the current drivers, but sometimes they require a driver update to fix specific anomalies. You can test your glasses hardware by following some basic steps as well as consulting the knowledge base for additional tests. Click on the 3D glasses category and then click on Test your glasses. Be sure to take every single test. The first simple way to test whether the glasses are working and the communication between the transmitter (wireless only) and the glasses is to download our program called the E-D activator (E-D.exe). You can find it in the software updates section of the eDimensional.com website. When the E-D Activator is open it will appear in the bottom right hand corner of the screen in your taskbar. Right mouse click on it and check the Interleaved setting, then right mouse click again and select stereo Normal. If you have an LCD screen, right click again and select LCD 1 mode. Does the screen turn a little bit darker and shake a small amount? If so then the dongle works. Now, do the glasses lenses turn slightly
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darker (on the wireless model be sure to press the ON button)? Does each lens go darker or just one? If they don't darken the issue is either the transmitter or the battery area. It would be very unlikely that the transmitter or dongle are not functioning properly. First we suggest trying new batteries in case they lost their charge. We would then recommend consulting the knowledge base for additional glasses tests. - Black horizontal lines in the monitor - Sometimes the game can look "grainy" or have lines in it. To make it look it's best, raise the resolution setting as high as you can without adversely affecting game performance. Most LCD monitors have lower refresh rates, response times and resolutions than CRT monitors. However, they continue to improve. The newest LCD monitors have faster response times 8-12ms, better resolution capabilities than they use to, and higher refresh rates, will also create a better overall 3 dimensional image. At the current time CRT monitors typically produce the best quality 3D effect, but LCD monitors still can produce a very compelling effect as well. - Dark screen - First, change the brightness and contrast dials on your monitor. These are physical buttons at the bottom of the monitor and can significantly brighten the screen. Many games have a gamma setting. Go in to the game's settings menu and usually in the Display (or advanced display) options you will see something for gamma. Inside of the video card properties of your Display settings, you can also find gamma settings, go to the display settings to the Settings tab and then to Advanced. You will find gamma and/or brightness settings in there. Finally, the nVidia drivers have a gamma setting on the "Stereo Properties" page while the eDimensional drivers have one in their settings as well. - Most importantly, keep using the glasses. After a week or two you notice your eyes further adjust to the 3D image and you will be more proficient adjusting the 3D settings, making it easier to use and enjoy.
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If you find any discomfort in using the glasses initially, just give your eyes a rest and youll be able to use the glasses for longer periods of time as you get used to the new 3D effect. You will also find yourself being able to increase the 3D separation, creating a greater 3D effect. That takes some time and experienced users can make it look very 3D while occasionally new users need time to fully get used to the effect. Now start enjoying your new 3D glasses and have fun! Be sure to check for driver updates on the web, keep up to date with our newsletter (signup on the homepage), and visit eDimensional.com frequently for great new products and innovative gaming accessories.
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References
[1] Takeshi Kurata,Takashi Okuma, Masakatsu Kourogi, and Katsuhiko Sakaue, The Handmouse: A Human Interface Suitable for Augmented Reality Environments Enabled by VisualWearables, In Proc. ISMR 2001 in Yokohama, Japan, pp.188-189 (2001) [2] Sasaki,H. , Kuroda,T. , Manabe,Y. , Chihara,K., Augmented Reality Based Input Interface for Wearable Computers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 1834, pp.294-302 , (2000) [3] Abe,K. , Saito,H. , Ozawa,S. 3-D Drawing System via Hand Motion Recognition from Two Cameras, IEEE International Coference on Systems, Man & Cybernetics , pp.840-845, Oct.2000
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