3-D workstations for Mma
- To: mathgroup at yoda.physics.unc.edu
- Subject: 3-D workstations for Mma
- From: jdr at crl.com (Jon Roland)
- Date: Sun, 13 Dec 92 23:43:46 PST
At the Sun Users Group show last week (Dec 7-10, San Jose, CA),
called SUGshow'92, I saw something that may be of great interest
to Mma users. It certainly excites me. It is a 3-D viewing system.
I have seen various pervious attempts to achieve 3-D for computer
displays, but this is the first I have seen that is convincing
and looks like it might become a standard approach.
The system was first shown at Siggraph'92. It utilizes special
glasses with LCD lenses that alternately become opaque or
transparent at the rate of 120 cycles per second. The glasses
are synced to the crt display, which alternates right and left
eye images, also at the rate of 120 cycles per second. Sync is
maintained using an infrared link, consisting of a small box
usually placed on top of the video display, that must be in line
of sight with the glasses to maintain the link, but there is
no other connection between the glasses and the video display.
Most ordinary color monitors are not, unfortunately, fast enough.
So this innovation, if it becomes widespread, will dictate that
monitors meet specifications that will permit the 120Hz frame
alternation.
The vendors provide software to manage the alternation of images
at the appropriate rate, but it is up to the application to
produce the graphics for each eye. This is a natural for products
like Mathematica. It would permit us to view our graphics in
depth, something that many of us would like to be able to do.
Producing alternate images is easy for any product that permits
rotation, although some mods may be needed to handle animation
effects.
The vendor is StereoGraphics Corp. of San Rafael, California.
--Jon
--
_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ / Jon Roland
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ / Starflight Corporation
_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ / 1755 E Bayshore Rd #9A
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ / Redwood City, CA 94063-4142
_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ / 415/361-8141
/ jdr at crl.com,jdr at starflight.com