oster@well.sf.ca.us (David Phillip Oster) (06/03/90)
Run! do not walk to your local magazine store and get a copy
of the Summer 1990 issue of _Whole_Earth_Review. There are
many great articles in this issue. P. 32 has a short description
of a desktop DNA sequencer & companion DNA sequence reader.
Both have interfaces to either Macs or PCs.
Turn to page 80 for "Travels in Virtual Reality" by Howard
Rheingold.
Here is a quote from page 83:
"Tektronix Corporation, which started out as an oscilliscope
company, is already marketing a hardware/software package
called CAChe (Computer Aided Chemical Modeling). CAChe is a
molecular modeling program with 3-D input control, stereo
3-D output, and high computing speed. Tektronix's stereo frame
buffer board fits in a Mac II and drives a liquid crystal,
stereo frame shutter that covers the monitor's screen. The unit,
transparent to the naked eye, reverses the polarity of the emerging
screen's image at 120 hertz, which provides each eye with a left or
right view at 60 hertz per eye. The view through "electronic
shutters" creates a stereoscopic 3D effect by showing alternate
views to each eye."
Does anyone have info on price and performance of this beast?
--
-- David Phillip Oster - Note new address. Old one has gone Bye Bye.
-- oster@well.sf.ca.us = {backbone}!well!osterjmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) (06/04/90)
In <18313@well.sf.ca.us> oster@well.sf.ca.us (David Phillip Oster) writes: >"Tektronix Corporation, which started out as an oscilliscope >company, is already marketing a hardware/software package >called CAChe (Computer Aided Chemical Modeling). CAChe is a >molecular modeling program with 3-D input control, stereo >3-D output, and high computing speed. [Stuff deleted] >Does anyone have info on price and performance of this beast? Since they are using a 120 Hz update rate, there is very little flicker, but I think this will also make the price a lot higher. The glasses are dirt cheap to make, but a large (and fast) LCD shutter probably isn't quite as inexpensive as a pair of small LCD shutters. If you are really interested in 3D, build yourself the Sega glasses interface and try the demo software (it's really easy to write your own software based on the demo sources). The sega glasses can be connected to almost any RS-232 or RS-422 serial port. The files are mainly for Macintosh use. To get the instructions and demo software: USA: ftp sumex-aim.standford.edu I think the files are in the C source code directory. Europe: ftp vega.hut.fi cd pub/mac/finnish/sega3d mget * The vega.hut.fi archives contains the document files in FullWrite, MacWrite and text formats. The text file is accompanied with illustrations in a single GIF file. A GIF viewer/converter can be found for most current computers. The glasses have been discontinued in the USA, but might still be available from the following places. (Quote from a letter from someone who built the interface in the US) * SEGA gave me 3 distributors: Video Take Out 1-800-228-4336; J & R * Music (New York City) 1-800-221-8180; and Tonka 1 -800-347-3628. * The first one I could get through to was J & R .. they sell retail * and I was able to order 2 pairs for $44.95 each on a credit card. The glasses are widely available in Europe, since here the Sega Master System has not been discontinued. The price for the interface parts should cost less than $10. Building the interface on a prototyping board takes about two hours, maybe even less. I'd really love to see some CAD software for these glasses. A friend of mine is going to Autodesk to take a look at their virtual reality stuff and is taking my glasses and interface with him to show to them. In my opinion, what we now need is a dirt cheap way to introduce people to the possibilities of virtual reality. Popularizing 3D glasses is an important step in this direction and my guess is that the Tektronix system is too expensive to become popular. ___________________________________________________________________________ / Juri Munkki / Helsinki University of Technology / Wind / HP S / / jmunkki@hut.fi / Computing Center Macintosh Support / Surf / 48 X / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~