[chimera-dev] crystal eyes

[Greg Couch]

On Fri, 9 Jan 2009, Randy Heiland wrote:

> Gang,
>
> Could you give me a brief update on the status of being able to use
> crystaleyes stereo (esp. for OSX).  Possible, requirements?
>
> thanks, Randy

Hi Randy,

For posterity, I'm going to give a little background first.

On all platforms, to use CrystalEyes, 
<http://reald-corporate.com/scientific/>, you need a workstation-class 
graphics card with a stereo DIN connector (ATI FireGL/FirePro, NVidia 
Quadro FX), and a display that supports a high refresh rate (>85Hz, 120Hz 
is ideal).  Historically, for the desktop, the displays have been CRTs. 
But LCD technology is improving -- ViewSonic is due to release a 120Hz 
LCD, the VX2265wm, this quarter.  You should also be aware of newer TVs 
from Samsung/Panasonic/Mitisubshi, that are "3D ready", use similar 
technology to CrystalEyes and may be compatible.

So for OS X 10.5:

Your only option is to use the Aqua version of chimera for stereo. 
Fortunately, it works well.  If you want to use the X11 version of chimera 
in stereo, you'll need to replace the X11 application that comes with 10.5 
with the _next_ version of XQuartz from 
<http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/wiki>, version 2.3.2.  X11 stereo 
works in the 2.3.2 release candidate if you start chimera in stereo from 
the command line (and don't switch out).

For OX X 10.4:

Both the Aqua and the X11 versions of chimera should work in stereo.  But 
we only test on 10.5.  So we recommend that you use the Aqua version 
because OpenGL works better in Aqua.

 	Greg Couch
 	UCSF Computer Graphics Lab