More information about nvidia stereo 3D on Mac

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Christopher B

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Jul 19, 2011, 11:30:43 AM7/19/11
to Field-development
The field team has created a careful investigation of stereoscopic
capabilities on Macs, documented at http://openendedgroup.com/field/wiki/ActiveStereo.
I am a software engineer keenly interested in creating stereoscopic
applications for Mac computers. Where can I find more information
about the nvidia emitter support for Mac, developed for field? I did
not notice any reference to such drivers in the source code checked
out from mercurial. Perhaps I did not look in the right place.

Marc Downie

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Jul 19, 2011, 12:58:26 PM7/19/11
to field-de...@googlegroups.com
Our active stereo code is stuck in a bit of a holding pattern right now — robust enough that OpenEnded can use it, but too fragile to be something that we can just hand out and expect people to be able to get working. It hasn't quite reached the point where I'm happy having people basing purchasing decisions assuming that our active stereo code will just work — it just hasn't been tested enough for that. There's also the nagging fear that Apple will disable Quad-Buffered stereo on consumer graphics cards (which would bring them in line with other OSs) and that would end the whole show.

If you have the hardware already, or you have the budget and time for research risk, then I'm happy to share the latest code and workflow. Perhaps we can work towards a set of instructions and a freestanding repository for people to use. Ironically, the version I like the best — as of about three weeks ago — is for the recent set of ATI graphics cards.

Marc.

 
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Christopher B

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Jul 19, 2011, 2:00:17 PM7/19/11
to Field-development

On Jul 19, 12:58 pm, Marc Downie <m...@openendedgroup.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 10:30 AM, Christopher B <christopher.br...@gmail.com
>
> > wrote:
> > The field team has created a careful investigation of stereoscopic
> > capabilities on Macs, documented at
> >http://openendedgroup.com/field/wiki/ActiveStereo.
> > I am a software engineer keenly interested in creating stereoscopic
> > applications for Mac computers.  Where can I find more information
> > about the nvidia emitter support for Mac, developed for field?  I did
> > not notice any reference to such drivers in the source code checked
> > out from mercurial.  Perhaps I did not look in the right place.
>
> Our active stereo code is stuck in a bit of a holding pattern right now —
> robust enough that OpenEnded can use it, but too fragile to be something
> that we can just hand out and expect people to be able to get working. It
> hasn't quite reached the point where I'm happy having people basing
> purchasing decisions assuming that our active stereo code will just work —
> it just hasn't been tested enough for that. There's also the nagging fear
> that Apple will disable Quad-Buffered stereo on consumer graphics cards
> (which would bring them in line with other OSs) and that would end the whole
> show.
>
> If you have the hardware already, or you have the budget and time for
> research risk, then I'm happy to share the latest code and workflow. Perhaps
> we can work towards a set of instructions and a freestanding repository for
> people to use. Ironically, the version I like the best — as of about three
> weeks ago — is for the recent set of ATI graphics cards.
>
> Marc.

Thank you Marc for your informative reply. It happens that I do in
fact already have a workbench full of stereoscopic hardware, including
nvidia 3d vision glasses and both pro (officially quad-buffered) and
consumer level video cards. I am also psychologically prepared to
struggle with a not-yet-working driver in my quest to find the "best"
desktop stereo solution for my Mac users. Does the "recent set of
ATI" cards include the HD5770? (we already have a few of those
around)

Regards,
Christopher Bruns
visualization engineer, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Marc Downie

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Jul 19, 2011, 3:50:47 PM7/19/11
to field-de...@googlegroups.com

>
> If you have the hardware already, or you have the budget and time for
> research risk, then I'm happy to share the latest code and workflow. Perhaps
> we can work towards a set of instructions and a freestanding repository for
> people to use. Ironically, the version I like the best — as of about three
> weeks ago — is for the recent set of ATI graphics cards.
>
> Marc.

Thank you Marc for your informative reply.  It happens that I do in
fact already have a workbench full of stereoscopic hardware, including
nvidia 3d vision glasses and both pro (officially quad-buffered) and
consumer level video cards.  I am also psychologically prepared to
struggle with a not-yet-working driver in my quest to find the "best"
desktop stereo solution for my Mac users.  

Sounds like you are the ideal person to help out! I'll tar something up and send it to you. I'm about to get on a transatlantic flight, so there might be a little delay.
 
Does the "recent set of
ATI" cards include the HD5770?  (we already have a few of those
around)


Yes. ATI driver stack doesn't implement CGDisplayBeamPosition which was our main trick for generating the commands for the nvidia 3d vision box; however, by borrowing part of a Kext from wonderful codebase of http://psychtoolbox.org/ we've been able to re-implement it.

Marc.
 

Jeffrey Treviño

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Jul 21, 2011, 8:29:31 AM7/21/11
to field-de...@googlegroups.com
Hi Marc and Christopher,

I'd also be interested in getting the code and some help with the basics - as Marc knows, I use field currently to make simple plane geometric abstract animations. But I've always wanted to do this kind of abstract work in three dimensions.

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grüße,
Jeff

《〠》】〶【〖〠〗〶〛〷〚
Jeff Treviño
PhD Candidate in Music Composition
@ the University of California, San Diego
〖〠〗〶〛〷〚《〠》】〶
Phone: 619 565 9611
Skype: jeffreytrevino
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