Hia Xavier,
For about 10 years already we use a simple solution consisting of a
cheap computer with two graphics cards, a beamer from the game industry
that can project stereo, and simple liquid crystal shutter glasses. This
gives us projection on the wall (just a painted wall, nothing special
with aluminum paint or so) in a small room that we (with some sense of
overstatement) call the cave. The stereo vision is excellent, and as the
beamer and computer are next-door (beamer projects through a small
double glass window), the room is silent. The image is nearly four
square meter big, the cave-room is about 3 by four meters and sits 4
people at one side of the table; they all have perfect stereo vision. In
this whole set-up the most expensive part was getting the little window
installed between the two rooms. It is my guess that if we had to
install everything again today the costs would be clearly under 2000
Euro (excluding the little window) perhaps even under 1000. The weak
point in the whole setup are the glasses as they burn batteries like
crazy. Our battery budget is probably more than 200 Euro/year.
If you want details, mail Elmar Krieger (el...@yasara.org); he installed
it for us many years ago and he is THE specialist in this field
Greetings
Gert
On 12-11-2016 12:29, Brian Smith wrote:
Hi Xavier,
Any LG "Cinema 3D" capable TV should give you good passive stereo for the kind
of thing you need and definitely work with PyMol and COOT under LINUX with a low end
Nvidia Quadro (not NVS) card such as the K620 using the NVidia drivers.
Sadly LG seem to have dropped 3D support from their monitors, but many of their
TVs have the capability with the smallest currently available in the UK being
the 32 inch 32LF650V at ~GBP 400. I use a similar, older model on my desk as a
monitor and it's just fine.
For a viewing room, a larger screen size version should be good and the 4K
models should provide a big advantage. A better graphics card might be useful
to drive them. I am trying to get a teaching classroom fitted out with e.g. the
84UB980V at ~GBP 6,000. In terms of audience, the main issue with these types
of screens is that you have to be at just the right height relative to the
screen for the polarization filter on the screen to be aligned with the correct
line of pixels, so make sure that you have adjustable height seats to cater for
people of all statures!
I priced up the projector (beamer) option a little while back. For a small room,
there's an EPSON product EB-W16SK that should do the trick easily for about GBP
1,000. These are only WXGA resolution though so fine detail will be a struggle (do
set line_width=3 in PyMol for example - this can be a good thing to do on the
passive LCD screens too). Remember you'll need a projection screen that maintains
the polarization (you can also get paint to do the job) - another £1,500 or so. For
a bigger audience go to a specialist 3D vision company for a pair of projectors
& polarizers with a budget of GBP 20,000+ in mind (mostly on the projectors).
We trialed an active 3D system also. The experience was not great - your
position in the room seems to matter more than with a passive system - and many
people reported motion sickness sensations - heavier glasses, flicker effect,
etc. all probably exacerbate this tendency.
Brian Smith
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IUPAB & EBSA Congress 2017 16-20 July 2017 http://www.iupab2017.org/
Institute of Molecular, Cell and Systems Biology & School of Life Sciences,
University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK.
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