Stereoscopic 3D (DLP-Link 120Hz active Shutter Glasses)

Works great on my Mac with DLP-Projector, but I don't know how it will run on other Macs. When you have access to a "3D Ready" DLP Projector with Shutter Glasses and time to test it I would be glad to hear if it works on your system too. I've also added a Mode for 60Hz Shutter Glasses but I can't test it. Possibly it works with older 60Hz CRT Projector Shutter Glasses.

Important: You have to set your Monitor Output to 120Hz (I think resolution depends on your projector, for me 800x600 1024x768 worked at 120Hz on the VGA Output)

Keys:

F1 to synch L/R correctly if necessary.

F2/F3 = Separation

F4/F5 = Convergence

F6/F7 = FOV

F8/F9 = Camera Zoom

H = Toggle HUD

Backspace = Turn 3D off

You can dramatically change the stereoscopic effect with Separation, Convergence FOV.
Looking at the mouse pointer can be helpful when changing the convergence.

Download: http://www.hessburg.com/ShutterGlassesTest.zip

 

for windows (I think not necessary because on windows people could use iZ3D: http://forum.iz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=3832&sid=6a8143e3505d3dde78744321c685a397 )

http://www.hessburg.com/ShutterGlassesTestWindows.zip

 

Nice Work VIC20,

I just returned by Plasma 50" 3D enabled TV...it was overheating. I love the newer 3D technologies. I currently use the old red/cyan 3D in my game and was looking into stereoscopic but didn't find a solution.

A nice pair of red/cyan glasses vs the shutter glasses in price is $5 vs $150!

I picked these up

http://www.amazon.com/Pro-AnaTM-Pre...D81C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1301506549&sr=8-2

How much does your Projector cost?

I look forward to following this thread.

 

On slower machines when the fps will be below 120 the 3D will be out of sync
I swap the pictures for the frame sequential 3D in fixed update. Unless someone knows how to display a render texture on screen at the frequency of the fixed update I see no solution to make it stable for games that run slower than 120 fps. I'm to n00bish to write a plugin.

I would love to see some stereoscopic 3D games for the mac. At least there is finally a stereoscopic player for the mac that supports quad buffer http://www.nongnu.org/bino/

My projector is one of the cheapest available non-LED, emachines V100 (Acer x110) 255,- EUR + Acer active shutter glasses 70,- EUR
It's a non HD projector, 800x600 is enough for me, I need it for work (sound design) and the movies I have to work with are PAL resolution anyway. But it's fun to play games on it even with such a low resolution.

 

I tried the demo with nvidea 3D. It works great after i hit backspace. But this is mainly because nvidea converts games to 3d.

 

Yes, because the demo switches to 2D then.

It's not made for nvidia 3D vision, I've made it mainly for Mac OS X where no driver based 3D games solution is available at all. But it works on both Mac PC with active DLP-Link shutter glasses that does not require IR-Emitters.

All new DLP Projectors work with this technology, even the cheap ones - 3D Vision alone costs almost 40% of the price that I paid for my projector and the shutter glasses!

http://dlp.com/projector/dlp-innovations/dlp-link.aspx

As you can see it even works when you are standing directly in front of the screen because the screen itself emits the signal to sync the glasses:

 

can you share the project used?
I have some experience in stereo 3d development in Unity and i think working together we can solve the remaining issues.

rahuxx

 

Hey VIC20,

great job! I tested it on a macbook pro with a acer V700 and it works fine.
You only switch the cams by 120Hz or is there any special synchronization?

Nick

 

Please read, download the project (works with Indie) and improve it

Download: http://www.hessburg.com/UnityStereo3D/3DTestProjekt.zip

 

hello i have Nvidia 3d vision and i use Cinema4d for Stereoscopic videos( left and right renders ).

Is your system available in future for Nvidia 3D vision and unity3d projects?

Thank you

 

Hey,
very nice done. And in JavaScript! Perfect for me. I will test it the next weeks and show you.

 

Long answer:
Nvidia 3D Vision uses an IR-Emitter. I don't have 3D Vision, but when you can fire up this emitter while 3D Mode of 3D Vision is turned off it should work with the project. All you need is shutter glasses @120Hz. If you can't sync the glasses then the 3D Mode would try to double the 3D effect, so each of the L&R pictures would be displayed in 3D - the result would be a total mess up.

DLP Link Glasses does not need a special IR-Emitter, the screen itself acts as emitter of the sync signal http://dlp.com/projector/dlp-innovations/dlp-link.aspx

That's why I had Mac OS X in mind when creating this project, on windows there is no need to create the stereoscopic pictures in the game itself, the 3D Vision drivers will do that. There is not a single driver based 3D shutter glasses solution for Mac OS X available yet.
As glitchy mentioned above the demo works when you press backspace (to shut off stereoscopic 3D in the demo)

Short answer: I guess no.

 

Would be cool if someone could add this as option to games on the Mac App Store - I urgently want to play some full games in 3D and my own titles are iPhone only

 

Thank you for the answers.
But with the Nvidia 3D Vision driver i don't have control on convergence or offset, and in my experiment with unity3d the 3D object perception is inside the monitor and not outside (i can't change it, it's automatic )
For this reason the DLP technology is more interesting.
Could i use my 120 hertz monitor with DLP glasses?

 

You need the sync signal emitted by the DLP Projector. Otherwise the glasses will not work.

On the PC you can try the iZ3D driver, there is some unity plugin for it: http://forum.iz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=3832&sid=6a8143e3505d3dde78744321c685a397

 

Maybe its possible to make your own white-light sync, with LEDs and Arduino and synchronized through unity ?


Hey VIC20,

I would like to see some good games, too. Actually, I´m working on a more VJ/Art-thing, a musician on stage interacts with a unity-world...
therefor your S3D Script is perfect.

But after this I´ll have to make a game ! in S3D

When we are ready for the show (in Berlin) I´ll invite you! At least you will get credits for the camera setup!!
Many thanks again!!!
And maybe I can help to improve the script, but I´m a really a newcomer to unity and scripting at all.
I wrote my first code in december, with the worms-tut from tornado-twins

Nick

 

The spectators will all wear shutter glasses???

...great PM me then.

 

I´m not sure if we use shutter glasses , thinking about a polfiltersetup...

 

Will a polarized setup also create the pictures by switching at 120Hz?

 

Well, no. You have to split it into two constant streams of 60Hz, and you need two beamer, polfilter and a silverscreen.

For that its still work to do, but with your script and our two dlp3d ready beamer, right now I´m thinking about buying 20 shutterglasses and make it a exclusive-only-20-people-show

Nick

 

In the pro version you could broadcast the camview to max/msp or via syphon, to a mediaserver from where its possible to send the two streams synchronized to the beamer... I´m working on that, is on my list to test it on the free unity-version, cause my pro demo ran out and the plugins don´t work anymore.

 

Interesting idea. But you could also just use a matrox adaptor to fake a single screen on two monitors.

 

The Nvidia 3Dvision does have convergence and other controls that can be adjusted with hotkeys while in-game. There is a button in the control panel where you make the advanced controls active and can change the hotkeys or use the defaults.

Any fullscreen games made with unity will run in 3D with the nividia system and the game can run at any frame rate, except dynamic shadows and post-process imagefx can be problematic.

 

At any fame rate because the Nviadia 3D Vision Drivers activate the Quad Buffer which is normally the feature of the professional Quadro graphics cards. The graphics card itself does the buffering of the left and right pictures and switches between them at 120Hz till the game has rendered the next frame (and the drivers made a stereoscopic picture of them).

You will never have as much control with 3D Vision as you could have by implementing your own stereoscopic buffer. For example with your own system you could work with the convergence as effect and you can preadjust the stereoscopic settings for any scene.

And a DLP Projector does not need 3D Vision at all except for games. (For some unknown reasons on Mac OS X my 8800GTS even supports quad buffer output in the stereoscopic open source video player "Bino"). #

A DLP Link Setup is cheaper, the sync works better (from any viewing angle because there is no IR emitter necessary) and all Projector manufactures support "3D ready" DLP Link today, while they need to buy an expensive license to get 3D Vision support (when they don't pay Nvidia the projector will be blocked by 3D Vision drivers, for example my projector will not work with 3D Vision except I somehow fake another projector).

Also 3D Vision only supports Nvidia Cards. Usually you will keep your Monitor / Projector for a longer time than your graphics card.
Last but not least there is no support for Mac OS X.

Many good reasons to find a solution for a stable support of DLP Link like it's already available for other "free" stereoscopic systems (which does not work with DLP Projectors at all): Mac Users, ATI users, DLP Projector Users, less costs for the users, zero configuration problems.

 

Granted - My reply was to Andrea who said there was no convergence control in the nvidia driver. If Andrea owns a 3d vision setup, I thought I would mention where the convergence settings can be found - especially if that is the reason for wanting to switch to something else.

Also, you can "preadjust" the stereoscopic settings for any game in the nivida configuration. You just run the game once, change the settings, and then hit a hotkey to save the config for whenever the game runs again. This consists of eye separation, convergence plane, back plane, cross-hair overly image, etc.

The IR emitter for the nvidia system is not really that limiting, but the idea for syncing to a signal in the vertical blanking of the video is nice. But using the IR emitter, I have been able to place it below or above a large rear projection screen and stand a few feet from the image and it works fine, plus the IR can bounce off the screen and still control the glasses.

The point about nvidia "certified" 3D projectors is a good one. I used the "fake inf" method to make it work with a super wide throw projector that the 3dvision driver would not recognize by default. Once I learned how that process can work, the "certified" limitation kind of goes away.

I agree that a stable solution for 3D stereoscopic viewing would be valuable. DLP Link only works with DLP projectors and not 3D LCD TVs or plasma TVs (those have IR emitters built in to them, or you can use nividias' emitter and they work with them.) DLP TVs (which we don't really see any more) use a checkerboard pattern rather than page flipping. I wish there were a way to page flip between two cameras in unity that would not break if the game frame rate drops below 120 fps, because it would be great to use the dynamic shadows and post process effects to their fullest, and the nvidia GPU method does not work with the way unity does that processing. The matter of solutions for Mac is an important one too.

 

Just in case someone can write plugins - you can download the source code of the stereoscopic video player "Bino" for Mac OS X here:

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/bino.git/

On my 8800GTS Bino output works with QuadBuffer.

 

In moment doesn't exists any Active-NV3DS solution for unity. So far I known.

I have no idea, how to write a unity plugin/dll/addon/whatever to add functions to control the NV-IR-Emitter. If anwhere known, please write
At the moment I saw only DLP solutions(most DLP hardware lose 50% of the resolution by using checkboard or interleave formats).

VIC's solution works with NV3D if you found a program(like Stereoscopic Player or SilverLight) which activate the 3DS mode in Window mode. Then you can run VIC's demo and is in NV3D active. BUT! The program runs on 119.95 fps. So after each 5-10 sec switches the eye buffer.
So we need a control of the IR-Emitter and of the Buffer to use it for real projects.

@VIC20 Which lightning settings you use?

PS: Example with Stereoscopic Textures (real simple made) you can find here: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/76822-3D-Photos-in-the-Scene?p=537793&viewfull=1#post537793


/edit:

Yes...that controls API is missing too

...and no defered lightning (in my tests) and you havn't a chance to create stereoscopic textures.

 

On the Mac, displayed with a DLP-Link Projector, it runs at 120hz without eye sync problems (except when it really falls below 120fps because of performance problems). Possibly NV3D related?

You mix up 3D DLP with DLP-link.
DLP link uses 100% of the resolution, the video feed for it just has to switch between L&R picture, the sync to the glasses is generated by the projector itself.


3D Textures is a cool idea, but the convergence of the textures will be always different to the convergence of the cameras which might could look weird I guess.

 

BTW: 3D Textures would work with DLP Link. Just switch the textures before the camera switches.

And I guess you can somehow add a fix for losing eye sync with NV3D by syncing the projects "buffer" (which is no buffer at all, that's the problem) to the time since startup and 120hz. Possibly it's just the problem that the real QuadBuffer of the card went out of sync with the unity-game.

Do you have 2 computers at hand? Try to run the NV3D emitter on another PC. WOuld be interesting if it still loses sync when NV3D and quad buffer is completely disabled on the host system of the game. Then it should work like with DLP-Link.

(1 PC for the emitter, the other one for the game)

 

Ahh yes, it is. So is DLP-link similar to nv3d, which uses full resolution page flipping(or parallel output...I'm not shure...I'm shure it need double resolution). So also need a dual-dvi cable, because 1920x1080*2(left, right) is to much bandwidth for a "normal" DVI cable.Cool to known

The 120fps effect I have to. If I have 119 or 121 fps I loose already the sychronisation. On complex scenes I have most 40fps...so no chance to synch the eye, except if I known, which frame the monitor will display or I have direct QBuffer access.

Ahh, that is a problem, what if have by passive 3DS. Here make the graphic card the quad buffer and 2nd camera AFTER der programe/game is finished. So the programm self doesn't known, that it runs in 3D. So the 2D-Effects, which are used by (I hope I remember me correct) defered lightning(nur diese methode erlaub überkreuzende schatten und schatten für punkt lichter) and cascaded shadows doesn't look correct and make a kind of ghosting effect.

Of corse. I will make in the next days a YT3D-Video of my example. Then you can see it also with the "crossed eyes" method.
But, if you have the "Zero Paralax Point"(ZPP) behind the projected pane, then is it very easy to see in active 3DS mode.
My example has 2 3D-Photos. The flow has the ZPP in front of the projection plane and the garden has the ZPP behind. The flow is difficult to see, the garden looks always pretty nice.

The problem to is, you have to sync the 3d-photo with the scene. If you show the left-eye-photo when the scene renders the right eye camera image(and reversed), then is the photo-depthness invertet and loose the 3D-Effect.

 

Hi VIC20 -

I'm skeptical - are you really able to maintain sync with the DLP projector for extended periods of time?

I downloaded both the app and the project, and with both of them I find that fps fluctuates both above and below 120, with predictable results (eyes switch and/or flicker every few seconds).

I'm running on Macbook Pro 3.06GHz with Nvidia 9600M GT, a Sharp projector with DLPLink and Xpand DLPLink glasses. I did find that the built app stayed closer to 120 fps (usually it was about 121-122), but that wasn't close enough to keep the eyes from switching.

So is there any special technique you used to keep frame rate at exactly 120Hz? You say "set player settings to synch to VBL at 120Hz", but I don't see anything in Player settings about VBL (there are VBL checkboxes in Quality settings - is that what you meant?)

Anyway, slaving the rendering rate to the projector refresh rate is far from ideal - it would be great if it worked, but we still need a real solution.

pH

 

Yes, we still need a real solution.

On my machine it works 2.4GHz quad core, 8800GTS (Hackintosh). I don't remember it, is there an explosion in the scene? When the explosion occurs fps will drop. But the project without explosion works for me without losing sync. My Projector has 800x600 native resolution, maybe if your resolution is higher then it won't work as good.

Yes, in the quality settings.

 

You're right, the resolution is 1280x720 - I tried lowering it to 800 x 600, and then a build of the project runs faster, in fact it never drops below 122 fps, but that doesn't make much difference since too fast is just as bad as too slow.

 

I have access to a new DLP link Projector now so i can test it in next days

 

What Macintosh hardware and OS was used successfully in 3D stereo with a DLP link type projector?

I have run such as Viewsonic PJD-6531w DLP-link projector fine in 3D in windows.

what exactly do I have to do to get DLP link projector working in 3D from an iMac OS, 10.6.6 machine?

 

Should run on any Mac that can feed the projector at 100hz

 

Hello VIC20,

today i have tested your "Unity 120Hz DLP Link Stereoscopic 3D for DLP Projectors" with great results!
it works very well with the OPTOMA DLP Link EX762 ( 1024x768) and the PC with Nvidia Quadro 4000.

Frame rate always over 120 FPS( 120-125 fps).
The stereoscopic perception and image quality were very good and the depth perception was incredible with 3D characters outside of the screen and not only inside.
I don't know if it's only my perception but usually with other system like Nvidia 3d Vision after few minutes i have to relax my eyes while with DLP link system tested today and i was able to watch for several minutes without any problem!

Today i have also tested Nvidia 3D vision compatible systems with Unity 3D projects and the stereoscopic perception was quite good but not as good as DLP link system.

System tested with Nvidia 3D Vision:

TV Panasonic tx-p42vt20e connect only with a HDMI 3D cable! ( good quality but low depth).
Sanyo DWL 2500 Nvidia 3D Vision Ready Wxga connected with a cable to the Nvidia emitter for the 3D sync( low quality and low depth, but we were too far from the screen).

Thank you,

Andrea

 

just the 100 fps issue is still the problem...

 

For the test i use a Pc with nNvidia Quadro 4000 but can i use your plug-in with a iMac or Mac Mini?
If quad buffer is not necessary...It would be a lot cheaper.

Andrea

 

Should work as long as it's fast enough for the 100fps

 

Thank you,

I'm testing your test demo on my iMac ( Snow Leopard Core 2 duo, Ati 4670 , 8 GB ram ) but FPS is blocked to 60 even if i set 640x480 fastest.
I can change resolution and quality but always around 60 FPS.
But i don't have the DLP projector here.

 

It's blocked because it's hooked up to a TFT Monitor (internal) which has 60Hz. Connect an old VGA Monitor with adaptor and you will be able to select 100hz

 

Now it's clear

Thank you

 

VIC20 and others,

I'm trying to get this Stereoscopic project to work in a CAVE-esque system. (3 DLP 3D-ready projectors with three screens side-by-side) I know that there are issues with getting unity to run on multiple screens but that's not something I'm worried about right now. The problem I'm running into is that when I run the program the 3D isn't syncing up correctly. Mid-range to far-range objects look great however close-up objects such as the avatar are really jittery and scan-lines seem to creep up the screen.

Observations:
The computer should not be the limiting factor unless it is running too fast; its running Win XP x64 i7 with dual Quadro FX 5800s.
It is IR sensor based but it is not connected to the projector itself but rather the videocard.
If the ShutterGlassesTestWindows.zip program is run, the jitter is gone but the scanlines still are there. (what changed?)

I've been trying to tweak different settings such as limiting frame rates and timing factors but nothing is seeming to work, any suggestions? Great work so far by the way!

 

Why do you use the IR sensor? It's not necessary at all with DLP-Link. Does the glasses require it? If so, have you tried it with DLP-Link glasses?

This thing is really primitive - it just gives out swapping pictures at 100hz - as long as your fps won't drop below 100 there should be no issues at all. But when you use another sync source for the glasses than the DLP-link flash the chance is high that you will get out of sync because 100hz is not always 100hz (I can just guess that from my audio profession. it's like if you press play on 2 different digital audio players exactly at the same time using a remote, after a while they will run out of sync while playing the same title when they don't use a master/slave clock).

 

The IR sensor is because of the Crystal Eyes 3 glasses we use(old technology I know).
Thanks to your explanation I'm positive that's my issue. I'll see if I can get some DLP-Link glasses to fix it.

Thank you!

 

This is great! Thanks! Works perfectly here. Oddly, when our projector is connected to our MacPro, it gives the option of 24Hz, 50Hz, and 60Hz. We tried at 24 and 60, both work just fine. No option for 120Hz, but if it works, it works I guess. We are running the through the MINI Display Port connector to HDMI, through the Viewsonic VPD31, then to the projector.

 

This works at 24Hz for you??? I thought the projector always needs 120Hz when 3D is activated.

 

Sorry if I am out of topic, but does that mean that there is no need for the optoma 3d xl extension in order to achieve 3d from a 3d read dlp projector? Using this player am I going to be able to view stereoscopic side by side 3d videos from my mac?

Thanks in advance.

 

What is the 3d xl extension?

No, this is not a video player.

If you want to watch 3D movies on a mac use this player: http://bino3d.org/