I think the weight of the shutter glasses puts them off. Compared to the 30g or less of the Zalmans the shutter glasses feel like bricks. I would estimate them to at least 270g. After one hour wearing them you feel them on your nose. Jürgen
...................... Jürgen Bosch Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute 615 North Wolfe Street, W8708 Baltimore, MD 21205 Phone: +1-410-614-4742 Lab: +1-410-614-4894 Fax: +1-410-955-3655 http://web.mac.com/bosch_lab/ On Mar 23, 2011, at 9:40, Christoph Parthier <cparth...@googlemail.com> wrote: > Hi Dave, > > We recently equipped a pool of 25 computers with Nvidia 3D shutter > glasses, they're used in structural biology courses for undergraduate > students of biochemistry . We teach mainly PyMOL, but (in an advanced > course) also model building in COOT. Of course, we let the students > decide whether they want to use hardware stereo or not. They all try. > After several courses now I realized no more than 30% of the students > keep using them in visualization and model building, while the majority > of students put the glasses aside... Some of the 30% said, it helps, but > could also do without. Haven't assessed this properly yet... ;-) > > Christoph > > > David Roberts wrote: >> Thanks for the comments, I do appreciate them. I guess we went off in >> a direction I wasn't thinking of - related to your personal like or >> dislike of stereo. What I am really looking for is an answer to a >> simple question in that is stereo a nice thing from a pedagogy >> standpoint for showing students complex biomolecules. >> >> I am in a chemistry department - undergraduate only. We focus on >> 3-dimensional shape and the importance of shape of chemical >> function/reactivity/etc... With small molecules (PF5, etc...), it's >> easy to see how shape works by simply rotating the molecule. The >> molecules are small enough, the concept of 3D can be visualized easily >> in these systems. Furthermore, they can make a simple model using >> your standard organic or inorganic model kit, no worries. >> >> Now, bring in a huge protein, or a protein-protein complex. The issue >> of 3Dness becomes fuzzier. It's not so easy to see which hydrogen >> will get plucked off during a chemical reaction, even with careful >> zooming and mouse manipulation. So my question still is, how many of >> you feel stereo is important from a pedagogy standpoint (not looking >> at maps, just structures that are huge and complex). Is it something >> that we need to try to bring to the classroom, or is it just a cool >> toy like the 3D TV that hopefully is going nowhere and will soon fade >> out like the viewmaster of old. I know a large percentage of people >> cannot see stereo (at least the way we present it), and so it isn't >> for everybody. But, does it help, and if so, does it help when done >> in a huge classroom or when put on an individual screen. Has anybody >> tried to assess this (there's a horrible word for you). >> >> That's what I was wondering about. Presenting the stereo is a >> different issue (how is that done), but I think there are lots of >> avenues for that depending on your particular situation. >> >> Thanks again >> >> Dave
