[Chimera-users] Stereoscopic 3D with vr

[Elaine Meng]

Hi Jacob, 
In case you didn't know, there is also a chimerax-users at cgl.ucsf.edu mailing list if/when you are mainly asking about ChimeraX rather than Chimera:

<https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/contact.html>

Elaine
-----
Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D.                       
UCSF Chimera(X) team
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
University of California, San Francisco


> On Jan 28, 2022, at 6:27 PM, Tom Goddard via Chimera-users <chimera-users at cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi Jacob,
> 
>   Is your question about using VR in our old Chimera program?  Why?  Why not use ChimeraX where VR is supported?  You can perfectly well use ChimeraX VR sitting in your desk chair -- it certainly does not need room scale.  It is of course hard to use your mouse and keyboard because you can't see the keyboard and because the mouse does not appear in VR.  So of course you should use the hand controllers.  You can use the hand controllers to click on the full ChimeraX desktop interface in VR, but there is no virtual keyboard, so you have to use the real keyboard blind if you want to type commands.
> 
>   But I'll take it you really want to use the old Chimera that we have not worked on for several years except for critical maintenance (like if it breaks for a new operating system release).
> 
>   How do you envision showing the left and right images from Chimera in a VR headset?  I assume you don't care about head-tracking -- you just want to use your VR headset like old LCD stereo shutter glasses.  I guess you could save a Chimera left eye image to a file, and a right eye image to a file, and use some VR software (don't know of any to do this) that can show a stereo pair.  Chimera isn't going to render to two cameras at once as you rotate a model, so trying to make this interactive looks out of reach unless you are an extremely expert Python (and possibly C++) hacker with a lot of time on your hands.
> 
>   Tom
>   ChimeraX VR developer
> 
> 
>> On Jan 28, 2022, at 6:00 PM, Danielson, Jacob via Chimera-users <chimera-users at cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I have a valve index and I tried out the VR mode in chimerax. It was quite impressive, however it is less practical for in office/lab use due to space limitations. In the past we have used sequential stereoscopic viewing but this technology is getting harder to service due lack of support from manufacturers. Is there a way to view the model with a VR headset and use standard keyboard and mouse controls? I noticed there was a capability of separate left and right stereoviews in chimera but couldn't figure out how to clone the model with two cameras so that the views rotate together.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Jacob Danielson