lance@motcsd.csd.mot.com (lance.norskog) (12/05/90)
3D Viewing Hardware Vendor Survey #1
Dec. 4, 1990
This survey is limited to companies claiming to ship to anyone
with the bucks (more about this below). So far, I've found
three LCD shutter systems, one LCD shutter hack project,
one LCD monitor system, and one LCD parallax system.
This posting is not an endorsement of any vendor or product.
Please send more, I'll maintain this list.
LCD Shutter systems:
Haitex X-Specs 3D for the Amiga line.
Haitex Resources, Inc.
208 Carrollton Park, #1209
Carrollton, TX 75006
Hardware: LCD shutter pair mounted in a welder's visor.
Small black box that with an Amiga joystick port
on one side and two 1/8" 3-pin jacks on the other.
The Amiga side just uses 5V/0 as an input square
wave, and feeds a 25V wave to the shutters.
You can fan those two plugs out to more shutter
sets.
Software: An arcade game, a molecule displayer, a stereo
picture viewer, a few pictures, a utility for
taking right&left views generated by ray-tracers
and viewing those.
List: $110.
Haitex appears to be out of business. I ran out and bought a pair,
you might find a set at the Amiga stores. The number given in
my product booklet "has been changed and is not listed at the
customer's request". Their BBS phone # (the source of my
technical info and pinouts, ask if you want them) doesn't
answer.
Vision Research Graphics
99 Madbury Road
Durham, NH 03824
vox: 603-868-2270
fax: 603-868-1352
Hardware: Reselling Haitex visor, going to their own design.
(Soon, one hopes.) PC Card which drives visor.
Card also listens to signal from VGA/EGA to monitor,
notices vertical retrace and interrupts.
List: $250 for card/glasses/cable/support.
Goes up jan 1.
Various other goodies: extra glasses $75,
3-axis trackball $150. (One presumes this means
it can be twisted. Carpal tunnel, here we come!)
Software: Software development kit.
3D routines, switcher hardware driver, binary library.
Not clear what's available in source form.
An engineer answered the phone and we chatted. He said the Haitex
visors can run at up to 80-90 HZ before crosstalk makes them
unuseable. Several VGA and high-end cards can run at dot clocks
which support 90-120 HZ performance.
Crystal Eyes 3D
StereoGraphics Corporation
2171-H East Francisco Blvd.
San Rafael, CA 94901
vox: 415-459-4500
fax: 415-459-3020
Hardware: LCD glasses with an infrared receiver.
Emitter sits atop your monitor, you need to be
within 6-8 feet.
$995 for glasses & emitter, $845 glasses only.
These are the lower grade LCD they sell.
The higher grade ones are $2000. They have better
"extension ratio" and are aimed at workstation users.
Various other gizmos for doing stereo video production.
Software: None from StereoGraphics, but they have a catalog
of vendors that support them. They also have a
listing of monitors and PC cards which support 120HZ
operation. The cheapest monitor lists for $2000.
I've seen the Ikegami 20inch (flat tension mask!)
in stores for $2000. The PC cards seem to be $2000+
also.
Their target is pro use instead of home use.
All their gear runs at 120HZ. Later their literature
mentions "extinction ratio" as does the Haitex specification,
so I think that's the real term; I'm guessing it means
the amount of light blockage achieved.
SEGA 3D glasses
Juri Munkki <jmunkki@jut.fila.fi>
(I had poor luck with the above mail address.)
Mr. Munkki has a circuit that takes 12V/0V inputs (the modem
ports of any serial port) and controls the SEGA 3D spex.
If you write him politely, he'll send you the part
list and a 2-color gif of the circuit. It's a single-layer
board, no big deal. You chip-burners out there, take note!
The parts should cost $10-$20, and the goggles cost $35.
They may be out of production, it's a little tough to
figure out.
The general scoop is that cheap shutter systems run at 60 HZ,
30 per eye. This gives severe flicker. The flicker drops when
you run them at 80-90 HZ, and disappears at 120 HZ. This corresponds
to the standard monitor speed spread of 30 to 60HZ.
Theoretically, an IBM or joystick port should be able to drive the
Haitex. They need 5V 33mA, which is more than a parallel port has.
IBM parallel ports don't have a solid 5V out, but the joysticks do.
A serial port could definitely handle the mA, but you need to build
a voltage divider circuit to feed 5V into it instead of 12V. I
flunked electronics; this whole paragraph is suspect.
Vision Research's current PC card is all analog, like the Munkki
circuit. They're doing a new card that uses a ROM to supply
waveforms to the visors instead of the current analog circuit,
as this gives better control.
Also, a new type of visor material is available which blurs on
command instead of going opaque. The rumor is that this gives
the same or better performance as opaque LCD and doesn't make
the room dim, because the full amount of light still comes through.
We'll see.
LCD Monitor system:
VideoPhones (??)
VPL Research
Redwood City, CA
Hardware: Helmet with two LCD monitors: $7500
With 3D Polhemus magnetic sensors: $9500
The LCD monitors are NTSC. Some sort of very
expensive glove and suit with all sorts of
sensors. Coming Really Soon Now: $200 version
Mattel Power Glove with full computer access.
System:
Twin SGI rendering machines are controlled by
a Mac. (!!) $250,000 for research version.
Darling of the media. Who does their publicity?
I don't have literature on VPL, and the above description
is distorted by my memory.
LCD Interference system:
DTI 100M
Dimension Technologies, Inc.
176 Anderson Avenue
Rochester, NY 14607
vox: 716-442-7450
fax: 716-442-7589
Hardware: Wacky. Special screen with no glasses!
This is a backlit LCD screen from portable computers.
It's based on vision parallax. (You may need a diagram
that I have and you don't to visualize the concept.)
The backlight is a grid with very bright thin
lines. The net effect is that light from grid
line X goes through LCD pixel X to get to the left
eye but goes through pixel X+1 to get to the right
eye. The next grid line over feeds pixels X+2 and X+3.
This gives you separate control over each eye
but half as many pixels. The plate is an inch or two
behind the LCD screen. You have to be in the horizontal
plane of the LCD screen to see the effect, with several
"sweet spots" in a semicircle around the display.
The screen is 640x480, giving a 16-level gray scale of
320x480 pixels. "Objects seem to come out of the screen
and extend into it." Viewing area, 6" x 8".
328 lines on the backing grid.
The full box is 12"x13"x2", tiltable.
Alleged to be very solid construction.
List: PC $6300 Mac $7900; comes with special
Yamaha video controller that speaks to LCD displays.
(This is very different from a CRT).
Software: PC and Mac drivers for controlling the display.
Some sort of 3D cursor library.
Salesman hadn't heard of the X Window system. I told him
PEX was his biggest target market. Claimed to be doing
custom stuff for various biggies (Nasa, Army, etc.).
If you feel like hacking one of these up from a cannibalized
laptop, it's very patented. Sorry, no patent #'s handy.murray@sun13.scri.fsu.edu (John Murray) (12/07/90)
In article <2283@greek.csd.mot.com> lance@motcsd.csd.mot.com (lance.norskog) writes: > > > 3D Viewing Hardware Vendor Survey #1 > Dec. 4, 1990 > >LCD Monitor system: > > VideoPhones (??) EyePhone > VPL Research > Redwood City, CA > > Hardware: Helmet with two LCD monitors: $7500 > With 3D Polhemus magnetic sensors: $9500 > The LCD monitors are NTSC. Some sort of very > expensive glove and suit with all sorts of > sensors. Coming Really Soon Now: $200 version > Mattel Power Glove with full computer access. Unless they've changed the prices since SIGGRAPH '90, it's $9800 for the EyePhone. I hadn't heard about them offering the EyePhone without the Polhemus sensor. They also have the DataGlove, a device you wear like a glove that registers hand position and orientation in 3-space (like the EyePhone does for the head) and position of the thumb and fingers. DataGlove goes for $8800. I have heard that they are working on some sort of "datasuit" like you referred to above, that tracks the position of all the limbs, but a) I don't think it's out yet, and b) I don't even want to *hear* the price tag when it does come out! :-) For more info, here's some text from a hype-sheet from VPL: "The EyePhone is a head-mounted display that incorporates wide- angle binocular optics, color... LCD screens, a Polhemus tracking system, a microphone, and high quality audio headphones in a comfor- table and convenient package. The quality of the video image is enhanced by a proprietary optical diffusion element. The interface consists of two NTSC video inputs, two line level audio inputs, one mic level audio output, and RS232 or RS422 serial I/O" They are indeed allegedly working on a $200 RS-232 version of the Mattel Power Glove (which they have the rights to.) Byte magazine had an article sometime this year about the Power Glove's internal workings and interface. (they reverse-engineered it, or something) > System: > Twin SGI rendering machines are controlled by > a Mac. (!!) $250,000 for research version. Correct, as far as the system goes. The Mac is the system control, the two Personal Irises are, in my understanding, strictly 3D rendering engines. I don't remember if your total package price is correct or not. Keep in mind, though, that the total package includes some pretty huge software packages that provide the interface between the various devices and the simulated environment. > Darling of the media. Who does their publicity? A) They have the best "Oh WOW! Gee WHIZ!" system available off the shelf. (it's a very high $100k's shelf to most of us, but nonetheless..) B) I think they've got a formidable set of patents.. (If they don't by this stage, they might as well give it up right now..) C) Founder and CEO Jaron Lanier makes for a wonderful media figure for news teams trying to cover a very esoteric scientific field - virtual reality. You can't exactly call him a stereotypical boring, dry scientist :-) > I don't have literature on VPL, and the above description > is distorted by my memory. Well, that's a few additional tidbits for you. Here's some more: VPL Research, Inc. 656 Bair Island Rd. Third Floor Redwood City, CA 94063 (415) 306-1150 (phone) (415) 361-1845 (fax) I don't work for VPL, or represent them in any way. I just happen to have some small familiarity with their stuff, and I happened to have some of their literature on hand when I saw your note. -- Disclaimer: Yeah, right, like you really believe I run this place. John R. Murray | "Never code anything murray@vsjrm.scri.fsu.edu | bigger than your head.." Supercomputer Research Inst.| - Me
jcs@crash.cts.com (John Schultz) (12/07/90)
Haitex is not out of business, they have relocated to Charleston SC:
Haitex Resources
P.O. Box20609
Charleston, SC 29413-0609
(803) 881-7518
I don't represent Haitex, but I did write the videogame packaged with the
glasses. If you don't use bright colors, the flicker isn't too bad. The larger
problem is ghosting (low extinction LC material). But I suspect that if the
e-ratio is brought up, so too will the flicker increase.
There is also an X-Specs developer's kit available. I just received a copy
of it and it looks pretty good (they're selling a beta version). I'm using
the X-Specs in my real time stereo simulation system (all custom software)
and they work pretty good. I'm getting 30 frames/sec with simple terrain.
Any questions about stereo 3D on the Amiga, fire away.
John