"2) I cannot understand why there is not more demand for stereo."
There are not enough structural biologists in the world to drive the
market. Back in a previous century, CrystalEyes was a specialty product,
and priced accordingly.
In this century, the idea was given a boost when flat panel monitors got
fast enough to support 120 Hz. That is when Nvidia came out with their
version, and the price came down. Then after they sold all the product
they could for gaming and 3-D movies, they dropped support. Attention
then moved on the VR headsets.
There is an open-source driver for Nvidia cards on Linux, Nouveau
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouveau_(software) <https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouveau_(software)>). Maybe someone could talk
them into supporting quad-buffered stereo.
=======================================================================
All Things Serve the Beam
=======================================================================
David J. Schuller
modern man in a post-modern world
MacCHESS, Cornell University
schul...@cornell.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* CCP4 bulletin board <CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK> on behalf of Richard
Alan Engh <0001053f39af3698-dmarc-requ...@jiscmail.ac.uk>
*Sent:* Thursday, February 27, 2025 07:57
*To:* CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK <CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
*Subject:* Re: [ccp4bb] AW: [ccp4bb] 3D/Stereoscopic hardware options in
2025?
Hi everyone,
I have been using wall-eyed stereo for most of my life, including
childhood when I would relax my eyes to superimpose the candles on
either side of church altars to see them take strange depth patterns.
Same with ceiling lights or mosquito netting. The stereo images in my
first organic chemistry textbook (Streiwieser & Heathcock) were then a
real "eye-opening" experience!
Two points here:
1) Wall-eyed viewing doesn't have to be too painful, it's just a bit of
trick to learn to decouple focussing from the relative eye angles. But I
do have to have the window pretty narrow on computer screens, so that's
a reason to use mirrors, lenses, or stereo glasses.
2) I cannot understand why there is not more demand for stereo. The
experience is simply a sudden understanding of the 3D scene. Naively,
two images can maximally double the information content, and because the
images must be highly correlated it is really much less. But the
perception (useful information) increase is much more. Try playing table
tennis without stereo vision.
So I asked ChatGPT to quantify this. An excerpt of the info regarding
perception:
------------------------------------------------------------
* *Monocular image:* Contains only *(x, y)* spatial information for
each pixel.
* *Stereo image:* Allows reconstruction of *(x, y, z)* coordinates.
If we assume *uniform information density*, adding the third dimension
increases the available information by a factor of:
Area of a 2D projectionVolume of a 3D space∼depth resolution
For an intuitive example, if we represent a table tennis scene in
*2D* as a 1920×1080 pixel image, it has *about 2 million pixels*. If
stereo vision lets us resolve depth into, say, *256 discrete levels*,
then the effective number of distinguishable spatial points increases to:
1920×1080×256=552,960,000
This suggests an increase of *two orders of magnitude (~100x), not just 2x.*
*2. Shannon Entropy Perspective*
A rough estimate from studies in *stereo vision compression* suggests
that while the pixel-level entropy gain is about *30-50%*, the *semantic
information gain* (useful scene understanding) is *closer to 10×–100×*,
depending on the scene complexity.
------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe there is a way to get younger people excited about stereo viewing
and keep simple systems working...
-Rick
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* CCP4 bulletin board <CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK> on behalf of Dirk
Kostrewa <dirk.kostr...@lmu.de>
*Sent:* Thursday, February 27, 2025 13:01
*To:* CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK <CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
*Subject:* Re: [ccp4bb] AW: [ccp4bb] 3D/Stereoscopic hardware options in
2025?
You don't often get email from dirk.kostr...@lmu.de. _Learn why this is
important <https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification>_
Dear all,
you can get quad-buffered 3D stereo working under Linux with Nvidia
emitter and glasses and a more recent Nvidia graphics card if the card
supports the separate Nvidia bracket with the 3-pin mini-DIN socket,
required to connect the emitter.
However, more recent Nvidia drivers recognize the emitter (green light
on it), but fail to activate it upon switching to 3D stereo! The reason
is a bug, that Nvidia introduced with driver 530 (see _bug report
<https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/3d-vision-bug-
in-530-30-02/248188>_; there might come a future driver 570 without that
bug). In order to get Nvidia 3D stereo working, I had to install driver
525 via the CUDA 12.0.1 repository (_see CUDA toolkit archive download
site for 12.0.1 <https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-12-0-1-download-
archive>_). I've also tried the stand-alone Nvidia-run-file installer
for driver 525, but this didn't work. The xorg configuration file
requires the usual 'Option "Stereo" "10"' entry for the Nvidia driver to
use the Nvidia emitter. The main problem is probably to still get a
monitor that supports Nvidia 3D stereo.
So, I have a workstation under Rocky Linux 8 with an RTX A4000 graphics
card connected to the 3-pin mini-DIN bracket and functioning Nvidia 3D
stereo. However in our lab, I am the last one (aka "dinosaur") who uses
3D stereo 😉.
Best regards,
Dirk
On 27.02.25 11:24, Oliver Einsle wrote:
Dear all, Hi Wulf!
I have to get in on this one, because I remember Juan Fontecilla-
Camps **very** vividly recounting on how every muscle around his
eyes hurt after doing cross- or wall-eyed stereo for a few hours.
Also, the mirror glasses with a wood frame and a head strap that we
had in some bottom drawer during my PhD time in Martinsried are
quite reminiscent of an Apple vision pro in terms of long-term
wearing comfort.
Alternatively, we are still happily running Linux, and with a little
effort you can get stereo going reasonably well (even if the
younglings these days show absolutely no interest in using it, btw).
What you need is a stereo-capable graphics card. We are still using
approx.. 15 yr old Quadro FX3700 without much problems. You also
need a desktop manager that allows to disable the “composite”
extension (e.g. KDE) and a Linux driver that still has the 3D vision
functionality and supports your card. Our current solution is to
have a few designated Workstations running a recent OpenSuSE with
KDE, and a patched driver for compatibility between the old card and
the newer OS. There is some flicker I did not observe in the old
days, but the system runs smoothly and stably in hardware stereo
@120 Hz, both on the Asus and with Emitters.
This solution will not last forever, but stereo has become so much
more useful again when looking at cryo-EM maps, so it would be great
to see a viable solution coming back.
Best wishes,
Oliver.
*From: *CCP4 bulletin board _<CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
<mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>_ on behalf of "Hughes, Jonathan"
_<jon.hug...@bot3.bio.uni-giessen.de>
<mailto:jon.hug...@bot3.bio.uni-giessen.de>_
*Reply to: *"Hughes, Jonathan" _<jon.hug...@bot3.bio.uni-giessen.de>
<mailto:jon.hug...@bot3.bio.uni-giessen.de>_
*Date: *Thursday, 27. February 2025 at 11:02
*To: *_"CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK"
<mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>__<CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
<mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>_
*Subject: *[ccp4bb] AW: [ccp4bb] 3D/Stereoscopic hardware options in
2025?
isn't the answer simple biology? almost everyone can squint (it's
good for your eyes, btw), so with a bit of practice you can see
structures in 3D with "cross-eyed stereo" dual images easily,
especially with a wide screen.
cheers
jon
*Von:* CCP4 bulletin board _<CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
<mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>_ *Im Auftrag von *Goldman, Adrian
*Gesendet:* Donnerstag, 27. Februar 2025 10:41
*An:* _ccp...@jiscmail.ac.uk <mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>_
*Betreff:* Re: [ccp4bb] 3D/Stereoscopic hardware options in 2025?
I went very old school (as in 1970s—1980s) and use side by side
either with mirror glasses that I put on my face or indeed by making
a double mirror system like we had at Yale with the ps2. Rather than
having a finely machined device with anodised black aluminium and
glass mirrors, I used cardboard and Mylar. It also works :)
Adrian
Sent from my iPhone
On 27 Feb 2025, at 10:49, Pedro Matias <_mat...@itqb.unl.pt
<mailto:mat...@itqb.unl.pt>_> wrote:
Hi Wulf,
We never got our NVIDIA 3D to work with Windows 10, only with
Windows 7. The Windows advantage is that the graphics cards are
much cheaper than those for Linux.
I believe there is a NVIDIA 3D Vision standalone driver that may
work in Windows 11.
Alternatively, my suggestion would be to use a PC disconnected
from the internal institute network and keep running Windows 10
on it. File transfer would be a bit of an hassle but workable.
Good luck & best regards,
Pedro
On 27/02/2025 07:05, Blankenfeldt, Wulf wrote:
Dear all,
I have just been shocked by our IT department’s announcement
that they will force us into migration to Win11 very soon. I
know I am a dinosaur, but I still use and love my old nvidia
Quadro/Asus/shutter glasses combi (over 10 years old) for
hardware stereo viewing of protein structures under Win10. I
am afraid that this will simply not work anymore once I have
been upgraded, since nvdia has disabled hardware stereo in
its drivers long time ago.
Personally, I cannot understand how modern structural
biology can live without it and I would love to still be
able view structures in “real” 3D.
I know that the ccp4 community is graphics- and tech-savvy,
I am therefore asking if you know of any modern day and
established/sustainable hardware solution for 3D viewing in
our favorite programs (Coot, PyMol, …).
Thank you in advance for your advice,
Wulf
*Prof. Wulf Blankenfeldt*
Struktur und Funktion der Proteine (SFPR)
HZI - Helmholtz-Zentrum für Infektionsforschung GmbH
SCIENCE CAMPUS Braunschweig-Süd
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Tel. +49 5316181-7000
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<mailto:wulf.blankenfe...@helmholtz-hzi.de>_
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