[Chimera-users] Stereo on Mac OS X, 10.4

[David Belnap]

Almost a year ago, I asked if there were plans to support stereo on  
Mac OS X.  Greg replied that Chimera could only when Mac OS X  
supported stereo-in-a-window (see my question and Greg Couch's answer  
below).  There seems to have been some progress on this by Apple.   
Their "scientific visualization" page (http://www.apple.com/science/ 
researchsolutions/visualization.html) says:

Thanks to its PCI Express architecture, the Power Mac G5 with the  
optional NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 graphics card gives researchers 3D  
stereo-in-a-window capabilities using a CRT display and  
Stereographics CrystalEyes liquid crystal shutter eyewear and E2Mac  
emitter.

See also http://www.stereographics.com/apple.html.

If I buy the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 graphics card, will I now be able  
to run Chimera in stereo on a Mac?

Thanks.

David



On Wed, 16 Mar 2005, David Belnap wrote:

> As a follow-up to the discussion about stereo by Virginia and  
> Sabuj, will
> Chimera currently, or in the future, work in stereo on a Mac  
> running OS X?
>

Only if Mac OS X supports stereo-in-a-window.  That appears to be
unlikely because stereo-in-a-window is a feature that is only  
supported on
workstation-class graphics cards (NVidia Quadro, ATI FireGL, 3DLabs
Wildcat), and Apple only sells consumer-class graphics cards (NVidia
GeForce, ATI Radeon).

chimera needs stereo-in-a-window, instead of full-screen stereo, so the
scientist can still use the dialogs to control chimera.  If we figure  
out
a reasonable way to keep the (mono) dialogs working in full-screen  
stereo,
then we will support stereo on the Mac.  (This also presupposes that  
most
of the Tcl/Tk on Aqua bugs are fixed.)

For some other thoughts about stereo hardware, see:
<http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimera-users/2004-September/ 
000197.html>

  	Greg Couch
  	UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
  	gregc at cgl.ucsf.edu

============================================
   David M. Belnap
   Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
   Brigham Young University
   Provo, Utah 84602  USA

   Phone:  801-422-9163
   FAX:      801-422-0153
   David_Belnap at byu.edu
============================================