[3dem] Hardware Stereo

[benoit.zuber at ana.unibe.ch]

Hi Pradeep

We just got one computer setup this week with nvidia active glasses under linux for not too much money. The key to keep it cheap was to buy an old (but new) quadro on ebay. We got the quadro FX 4800 for about $170. It has the 3-pin port, which is necessary for nvidia 3D Vision glasses to work under linux. You can find on this page which card have the 3pin system : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Quadro
Note that some very cheap old quadro cards (like $15 on ebay) that have the 3-pin system won’t work for 3D. You need at least the FX 3900 I believe (I found this info on pymol website but it is currently down so I cannot verify…).  For comparison, the cheapest modern quadro with the 3-pin system is around $900.
We have a 120Hz monitor (Acer GN246HLBBID, 24", LED TFT, 1920x1080 ), it works very well and costed less than $300. I don’t know if you would see any difference with a 144 Hz.
And finally the standard nvidia 3D vision 2 glasses with infrared emitter.

Even though the card was released in 2008, it smoothly displays protein maps and ribbon models in chimera. It struggles more when it comes to full tomogram density maps, but I guess that a modern card would also struggle ?!?

Before we got this card we had a geforce card on this computer. With that card, we got nvidia 3D vision stereo to work with chimera under windows, but only in full screen mode. We tried a bit under linux but without success. 3D vision with a geforce is definitely not supported by nvidia under linux, there are some reverse engineering solutions around but none worked for us.

Cheers
Benoit

De : 3dem <3dem-bounces at ncmir.ucsd.edu<mailto:3dem-bounces at ncmir.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Steven Ludtke <sludtke at bcm.edu<mailto:sludtke at bcm.edu>>
Date : jeudi, 15 octobre 2015 17:55
À : "Luther, Pradeep K" <p.luther at imperial.ac.uk<mailto:p.luther at imperial.ac.uk>>
Cc : "3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu<mailto:3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu>" <3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu<mailto:3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu>>
Objet : Re: [3dem] Hardware Stereo

There was a discussion about this here less than a year ago I think. Personally, I prefer the passive monitors, which use alternating row circular polarization fixed on the monitor.
Advantages:
- don't need a high refresh rate
- unpowered glasses, same kind the movie theaters (except IMAX) use
- no need for expensive Quadro card if your application has native support for row interleaving (Chimera does, for example)

Disadvantages:
- lose 1/2 the vertical resolution, which can produce a bit of a 'stair-step' effect. Minimized if you get a 4k monitor
- (without Quadro) limited to applications with native support

On Oct 15, 2015, at 10:37 AM, Luther, Pradeep K <p.luther at imperial.ac.uk<mailto:p.luther at imperial.ac.uk>> wrote:

Dear List,

I am looking to upgrade the stereo imaging on my Windows and Linux systems.   Please can users share their recent experience in  hardware for 3D imaging?  What is the preferred hardware with regard to graphics card, monitor and 3D glasses?   I am using an old sytem: a CRT, an Nvidia quadro graphics card and NuVision glasses.  Except the graphics card, these are obsolete.  Some 3D solutions seem to have come and gone already e.g. ASUS VG278H (with build-in IR emitter for driving nvidia stereo glasses).  For flat screen monitors I would like to enquire whether the 144 Hz monitors are much better than 120 Hz ones?   There is a lot of information on the Nvidia website (http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-displays.html) but it will be more useful to get recent experience from the 3Dem community.

Cheers
Pradeep
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Pradeep K. Luther
Molecular Medicine Section
National Heart & Lung Institute
Faculty of Medicine
Sir Alexander Fleming Building
Imperial College London
Exhibition Road
London SW7 2AZ
Tel: +44(0)20 7594 3239    Fax: +44(0)20 7594 3119
E: p.luther at imperial.ac.uk<mailto:p.luther at imperial.ac.uk>   W: www.sarcomere.org<http://www.sarcomere.org/>
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