Stereo Projection

[Don Murray]

Hi Kevin-

Kevin Manross wrote:

> We're looking into trying out stereo projection, and I'm hoping my 
> experience with VisAD will aid our group in that.  I see in the email 
> archives discussion on displaying stereo images.  I've tried to run 
> visad/examples/TestStereo.java, but get an error that reads:
> 
> [kmanross at lubbock examples]$ java -mx512m TestStereo
> Unable to find a Stereo visual
> 
> At first, I thought it was looking for a stereo image as an input, but 
> am beginning to think that it is looking for a display with stereo 
> capabilities.  Is this correct?  Is there any tutorial on how to run 
> (along with any potential hardware requirements) TestStereo.java?

It's looking for a stereo display.  In the code, it has:

     GraphicsConfigTemplate3D gct3d = new GraphicsConfigTemplate3D();
     gct3d.setStereo(GraphicsConfigTemplate3D.REQUIRED);

which requires a stereo visual.  For the IDV, we can use
a stereo config if one is available.  We have a method
for getting the graphics config to pass in to the DisplayImplJ3D
ctor:

     /**
      * Get graphics configuration for the screen
      *
      * @param d  the GraphicsDevice
      * @param is3D  true for a Java 3D display
      * @param useStereo true if a stereo display (is3D must also be true)
      *
      * @return the perferred config
      */
     public static GraphicsConfiguration 
getPreferredConfig(GraphicsDevice d,
             boolean is3D, boolean useStereo) {
         try {
             if (d == null) {
                 GraphicsEnvironment e
                     GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment();
                 d = e.getDefaultScreenDevice();
             }
             GraphicsConfigTemplate template = null;
             if (is3D) {
                 template = new GraphicsConfigTemplate3D();

                 if (useStereo) {
                     ((GraphicsConfigTemplate3D) template).setStereo(
                         GraphicsConfigTemplate3D.PREFERRED);
                 }
             }
             if (template == null) {
                 return d.getDefaultConfiguration();
             } else {
                 return d.getBestConfiguration(template);
             }
         } catch (HeadlessException he) {
             return null;
         }
     }

which will give us a stereo display if the graphics card
supports it (PREFERRED vs. REQUIRED).

There's no tutorial that I know of other than the Java 3D
FAQ:

http://java3d.j3d.org/faq/stereo.html

which is a bit out dated, but still relevant.

 From our experiences, the thing we hear is "It's really cool,
but can you get the GUI to be 3D in addition to the display?"

Don
*************************************************************
Don Murray                               UCAR Unidata Program
dmurray at unidata.ucar.edu                        P.O. Box 3000
(303) 497-8628                              Boulder, CO 80307
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/donm
*************************************************************


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