3D: coming to your flight sim soon?

[Bandy 3]

Many of you likely heard of new developments in 3D for home theater and computers, but this review may be of interestHERE

 

Imagine your favorite flight sim in true 3D! Add some exhaust fumes, burning engine oil and dope fumes and you've got a party!

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

It's definately coming...and like all things, the price will go down considerably...Our kids will have a wonderful time!!....But few will play WW1 sims I fear

[sandbagger 1]

Already here if you purchase 3D glasses (mine are EDimension) - they don't yet support Vista and you'll need an anologue GPU output - I swopped them across to my gamer PC but is digital so can't use them for now - cheaper than the alternative

[rabu 9]

SB: does that really work? And how can it when a game isn't recorded in 3d.. I don't get it?

[Burning Beard 14]

What I read from the quick blurb is it is actually transmitting two separate images that are picked up by your individual eyes, like the old stereopticon viewers work. I think they were talking about a dual web cam type thing on the top of the screen that would focus on each eye. Each eye would see from a slightly different view point. The microsoft page had two different people looking at a single screen seeing entirely different images (like one was picture and the other was a spread sheet). It would be like a TrackIR where the view changes from where you are inputting the signal.

 

Beard

[rabu 9]

Yes, buy you have to have recorded those images from slightly different angles for it to work in the first place.. that's what they did when they made those old sterioscopic images. I'm just wondering how they can come up with a stereo view from a single point image source.

[sandbagger 1]

Hi Rob,

The edimensional 3D glasses definately work and are good for CFS3/OFF. Quite how they transform non-3D games into 3D is way beyond my understanding. I've read on-line testing which included sucessful CFS3 flying.

 

Originally I had these glasses in use with a Sony 19 inch CRT monitor and they worked great. The in-cockpit view was brilliant with individual bracing wires and surrounding detail in full 3D. Outside views were not as good although it may be I hadn't set it all up fully.

 

When I moved onto a 24 inch LCD monitor I found the glasses didn't work. I then found out that edimensional had released updated glasses and software to allow 3D with either CRT or LCD monitors, so I purchased a set of those glasses.

 

However, I've had problems getting it to run. Basically you get a dongle that connects to yout GPU card outlet and to the input on your monitor. Connetors are analogue, but if you have DVI digital output connectors on your GPU, they say DVI-analogue adapters should work. Also you have the small IR transmitter that connects into the dongle. The wireless shutter glasses pick up the signal from the IR transmitter.

 

It seems from reading various post on the web that these glasses can run into problems with LCD monitors. The minimum refresh rate needed is 70 -75 Hrz and my monitor seems to be fixed at 60 Hrz. Lower refresh rates may cause ghosting. Also it seems that you need to use the edimensional drivers for LCD monitors, which some say are lacking. It use interlace technology which can reduce frame rates, something all OFF's are concious of. Also it appears not all GPUs are able to run the software.

 

Those that get it running on LCD monitors are very pleased with the results. Those that don't are not!!!

 

Of course these are my personal opinions based on my own experiances and from what I've read. I'd recommend these glasses if and only if, you run a CRT monitor. If you have a LCD monitor then I'd be cautious about paying out for these.

Edited June 20, 2010 by sandbagger

[rabu 9]

OK, thanks for the info SB. Sounds pretty neat, but not if there arre tech issues in getting it to work and if it loads the game down. Another glasses system I remember reading about a few years ago gives the impression of a huge, wide angle screen in front of you.

 

Here's an interesting website on building a 3d game room using projected big screen images.(click here) There's a very good section on the e-dimension glasses software. They basically say that the Nvidia software is much better, and the image is much higher res, but you have the LCD limiation, if you are using a projeced image though it really works well. (see this page)

Edited June 20, 2010 by rabu

[Flyby PC 23]

Is 3D the new Virtual reality, or has VR fallen by the wayside?

 

Trackir already gives you sense of 3D, since you can lean to the side and look down the aircraft with a reasonable sense of perspective, but beyond that, I'm not sure how enhanced you flight experience will be with 3D images.

 

VR on the other hand, once your head is inside the action and everywhere you look is game or sim generated, would be something a bit more special. Still, one step at a time....

[rabu 9]

Is 3D the new Virtual reality, or has VR fallen by the wayside?

 

Trackir already gives you sense of 3D, since you can lean to the side and look down the aircraft with a reasonable sense of perspective, but beyond that, I'm not sure how enhanced you flight experience will be with 3D images.

 

VR on the other hand, once your head is inside the action and everywhere you look is game or sim generated, would be something a bit more special. Still, one step at a time....

 

Check that link out I gave above, there's a good discussion of the VR helmets from several years ago. Apparently, they never caught on as people didn't feel comfortable in the confined space and not being able to actually see things around them in the real world, along with a lot of tech issues and generally poor performance. They even mention the ideal of a Matrix movie type of VR where you are hooked up to a computer, but that's going to be way down the line.

We went and saw Avatar and the 3d was pretty amazing. I've yet to see the new 3d TV's but hear they are also a big step forward to approaching VR and gamers and flight simmers who use 3d with the TRackIR say it improves their game, but it depends on the game, they vary allot.

[+SkippyBing 8]

The in-cockpit view was brilliant with individual bracing wires and surrounding detail in full 3D. Outside views were not as good although it may be I hadn't set it all up fully.

 

That's pretty true to life, depth perception only really works out to about 18 feet (depends on the individual to some extent) after that your brain is using familiarity with objects to estimate their distance. I.e. you know how big a house usually is so it's got to be about xx feet away, this has caused problems in the past when people have been low flying over wooded areas in low light and come across a wide area of new growth, they compensate by flying lower than they should be to maintain the same visual picture.

[von Baur 54]

And how can it when a game isn't recorded in 3d.. I don't get it?

 

 

Not being a programming whiz, it seems like it shouldn't be that hard. If the game represents a three-dimensional world (such as most computer games do these days) as opposed to a two-dimensional world (early arcade games like Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, etc. where the only travel was up/down and left/right) all the software would have to do is assign each screen a different point of reference approximately 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart and the game itself would take care of the rest.

 

My dream is a head-mounted display coupled with an inertial head-tracking system. Of course that would probably lead to our wives taking videos of us wearing these visors and twisting our heads around like mad men and posting them on You-Tube or somewhere . Some of these offer excellent field of view both horizontally and vertically coupled with significant overlap for true binocular vision (depth perception). Unfortunately, I haven't hit the lottery yet .