DIY Planer 3-D stereo compatible LCD monitors?

Post by **Silversurfer** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 4:00 pm

I'm hoping there is a list of the above type of monitors that one of you guys knows where to find or if not a list or how do I asked the question to the technical department of the LCD monitor manufacturers, what do I asked them regarding their polarity compatible for the Planer setup?

Thanks

Post by **Likay** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 6:42 pm

If you ask the salesmen of the polarization angle of the lcd-monitors i'm pretty sure they know exactly what you're talking about.

Jokes aside: I recall asking this question somewhere and got a ridiculously easy answer (don't remember from who though). Bring a pair of polarized glasses (45/135°) to a reseller of lcd-monitors and try them out there. If one of the eyes is completely blacked out when looking at the lcd you have a compatible one. The planar rig itself takes care of the rest so you can easily purchase two of those monitors.

(saw your post in the nvidia forums and posted there too).

cheers

Post by **Silversurfer** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 12:38 pm

Likay wrote:If you ask the salesmen of the polarization angle of the lcd-monitors i'm pretty sure they know exactly what you're talking about.
Jokes aside: I recall asking this question somewhere and got a ridiculously easy answer (don't remember from who though). Bring a pair of polarized glasses (45/135°) to a reseller of lcd-monitors and try them out there. If one of the eyes is completely blacked out when looking at the lcd you have a compatible one. The planar rig itself takes care of the rest so you can easily purchase two of those monitors.

(saw your post in the nvidia forums and posted there too).

cheers

Hi Likay
which polarised glasses would you recommend and where did you purchase yours from? Can I order any polarised glasses do I ask the specific 45/135° type of glasses?

I really hope that my Dell 24 inch 2405 FPW is suitable so I can find a refurbished one to buy because this model has had two further revisions since I bought it in 2005

once again thank you for replying to my post from the NVIDIA Forum and I will try to keep the members of this forum up to speed on my progress saw the other is looking for a specific monitor know that that monitor will work.

Thanks in advance, Silver_surfer

Post by **Likay** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 4:39 pm

It depends on where you are but here's some sites. (myself i live in sweden but here such things seems to be future age.. lol)
http://www.berezin.com/3d/ Have a lot of different products regarding stereo-3D. Good company to know about.
http://www.silverfabric.com/ This is where i mainly got my stuffs to the projection rig. They have different types of polarized glasses too.
http://polarization.com/ You can easily get quarterwavefilm and different kind of polarizing film here. They don't have any glasses but a lot of products if you feel like experimenting.
Of course google's also your friend.

Planar devices - Some things to think about:

If you get 45/135° glasses and matching LCD-screen then you can easily have two of that screen in a planar device working as a charm directly. (of course a semireflective mirror is needed but the polarization works at once)

If you want to use 0/90° glasses and matching LCD's you're going to need one LCD with 90° polarization and one LCD with 0° polarization (two different LCD's in other word). Another option might be using same LCD's and a halfwave retarder + an extra polarization film attached to one of the LCD's. You'll loose a little light on that screen with this option but at least it works.

I think all LCD's are linear polarized so stick to that regarding glasses too.

I don't have practical experience building or using a planar device since i decided for projectors instead. Therefore i have no idea what semireflective mirrors that might the best. But i think there's a quite good thread in the Nvidia 3d-forums about mirrors for planar devices though.

cheers

Post by **Silversurfer** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 5:19 pm

Hi Likay

Once again I thank you for your quick reply

you make it very easy to understand (you have very good English) so I will order two types of glasses, 1 x 45/135° glasses and also 1 x the 0/90° glasses and test them on my Dell 24 inch 2405FPW widescreen monitor to see which type of polarisation monitor it is.

If I am fortunate with this older Dell monitor I will try and find a refurbished second-hand monitor the same model and then order the glass. But if I’m not fortunate with this model of monitor I will have to buy to compatible LCD monitors and go from there which will be more expensive

.

Either way I will report back to this and other forums so future potential buyers will know exactly which monitor they can buy or not buy to make this Planer DIY setup work.

Cheers, Silver_surfer

Post by **Silversurfer** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:44 am

Likay wrote:
Planar devices - Some things to think about:

If you get 45/135° glasses and matching LCD-screen then you can easily have two of that screen in a planar device working as a charm directly. (of course a semireflective mirror is needed but the polarization works at once)

If you want to use 0/90° glasses and matching LCD's you're going to need one LCD with 90° polarization and one LCD with 0° polarization (two different LCD's in other word). Another option might be using same LCD's and a halfwave retarder + an extra polarization film attached to one of the LCD's. You'll loose a little light on that screen with this option but at least it works.

cheers

Problem solved

were very kind chap who posted a DIY 3-D planar project called the TARDIS in the UK sent me a pair of cardboard glasses which i was able to use on both monitors to confirm that they are 45° polarisation, that is to say that in either direction of left and right one of the lenses turns black at 45°. I take it this means that I have to order a pair of 45/135° instead of the usual 0/90° glasses?

Anyway thanks to your suggestion and may I just say that a great avatar if you made it yourself

Cheers

Post by **LukePC1** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:14 am

If I'm right, you can't build a Tardis (planar mirror) with 0/90°, so it makes no sense to buy that glasses. The only difference is, that the polarizers in the glasses are turned by 45°. You could turn your head as well.

If the 45/135° glasses work, the other won't work - and you won't need them.

Post by **Silversurfer** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:42 am

LukePC1 wrote:If I'm right, you can't build a Tardis (planar mirror) with 0/90°, so it makes no sense to buy that glasses. The only difference is, that the polarizers in the glasses are turned by 45°. You could turn your head as well.

If the 45/135° glasses work, the other won't work - and you won't need them.

I am bit confused at the moment about these angles so I've included some photographs to show you what happens to the 45/135° glasses I was lent when I place them in front of that monitors.

[img]http://www.cig.canon-europe.com/a?i=0sjawH2qIm
[/img] (alt+p)

As you can see I seem to be working at a different angle with these monitors so does that mean I need to be 0/90° lens glasses or do I need to purchase two new monitors that work with the 45/135° glasses?

Any help appreciated, Cheers Silver_surfer

PS
If I'm looking at having to purchase new monitors it looks like the Zalman monitor is the one to go for but I heard that they're not as good as the Planar setups because of the shutter glass technology, as the shutter glass is doesn't support many of the new special effects in gaming like post processing etc because the new forthcoming Vista NVIDIA drivers are currently restricted in their development?

Post by **Likay** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:19 pm

If you tested with 45/135° glasses it looks like your monitor is 0 or 90°. They arent well suited for planar setups since you need to do some tricks to get it working. The mirror will not help you mirroring the polarization so you need to change the polarization yourself. If you're determind to use two of the monitor you have you can:

1: Put a halfwave retarder and a polarization foil on one of the lcd's thus shifting the polarity 90° on that one. You need 0/90° glasses for this setup and you loose some light only on one of the lcd's.

2: Put a quarterwave retarder and a polarization foil on both of the lcd's thus making the polarization go 45/135°. You need 45/135° glasses for this and the damping of the light is equal on both monitors.

Retarders are used here to increase the light amount. You can easily shift polarity 45° using polarizers only but you loose some light. The retarder "twists" the polarity a bit so more light already have almost the right polarization before reaching the polarizer and that way gives more light throughput. Using only a retarder and skipping the polarizer results in pretty bad ghosting though (tested on my polarized dual beamer rig).

The best is of course using lcd's with 45/135° and 45/135° glasses from beginning since the mirror works as it should giving the best effect and amount of light.

quick edit: I experimented using a quarterwave retarder to shift polarization 90° and it work really great (in combo with an extra polarizing film though). No need for a halfwave reaterder then.

cheers

Post by **Silversurfer** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 6:35 am

Hello Likay, Thank you for your reply.

I am thinking that the planer set up with my current monitors will be too much of a hassle so I will either have to:

1: Buy to new 24 inch monitors with the correct polarisation, to continue to try and set up a Planer DIY set up, but the question is always which two monitors should I buy?

2: or take the money that I have £600 and by an alternative stereo 3-D display setup for my PC and hopefully for my digital terrestrial viewing, if such a display exists?

If you were in my position what would you do, especially with the NVIDIA and Windows XP the Visa compatibility for future implementation?

Once again thank you very much your help, Silversurfer

PS I know this sounds a stupid question but in my previous post I tried to include some photos which are hosted at my my Canon Gateway image server, can you tell me why the link to my URL didn't work, even though I inserted the line below in the thread?

I am thinking that the planer set up with my current monitors will be too much of a hassle so I will either have to:

1: Buy to new 24 inch monitors with the correct polarisation, to continue to try and set up a Planer DIY set up, but the question is always which two monitors should I buy?

2: or take the money that I have £600 and by an alternative stereo 3-D display setup for my PC and hopefully for my digital terrestrial viewing, if such a display exists?

If you were in my position what would you do, especially with the NVIDIA and Windows XP the Visa compatibility for future implementation?

Once again thank you very much your help, Silversurfer

PS I know this sounds a stupid question but in my previous post I tried to include some photos which are hosted at my my Canon Gateway image server, can you tell me why the link to my URL didn't work, even though I inserted the line below in the thread?

[img]http://www.cig.canon-europe.com/a?i=0sjawH2qIm
[/img] (alt+p)

Post by **Likay** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:21 am

With the situation as it is now you can only have stereo-3d using XP in combination with nvidia drivers. Hate to say this but if you can, i would advice you to wait until things settled up a bit (most of all stereodrivers). If you really want to view 3d the second best for you should be: Either get a second monitor and modifying them as above (a bit hazzle with that, i know) for a planar setup or (maybe even better?) getting a new pair of shutterglasses and a crt-monitor (maybe used one for cheapness). If you have the money iz3d is the overall the best choice since their stereodrivers for now are the best and regularly updated. The iz3d suffers a bit from ghosting but after using it for a while i don't find this a big problem. I'm not sure about what "digital terrestrial viewing" is but it sounds like viewing stereoimages? If only the solution used is supported by nvidia drivers as is now then you can use the nvidia stereo application for it.
There's a great application for the iz3d (s-view) too.

Regarding posting images you can always try to post the direct link to the pictures. It wont work if the site disabled hotlinking though. Myself i really like imageshack for picturehosting (only one i tried actually but they're ok). They provide you with a lot of different links for different uses for your pictures. The problem seems to be that you linked the

Code: Select all

[URL=http://www.cig.canon-europe.com/ph/AIG/w9LgMLzEJ47sCNBM3603ks3kskXL0003kskXLQ2wrEJmg.jpg][img]http://www.cig.canon-europe.com/ph/AIG/w9LgMLzEJ47sCNBM3603ks3kKjMw0003kskXLQ2wrEJmg.jpg[/img][/URL]

(Copied this code from imageshack forumcode. I'm no html genius.

)

I think you can figure out which address belongs to the thumbnail and the one to the actual picture. However: If you upload these at imageshack they provide you with all the codes needed.

cheers

Post by **Neil** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 11:28 am

If you haven't tried it already, you can post images in our gallery and link from there. I strongly recommend it because when sites like imageshack do their spring cleaning, the related forum posts lose their images too.

Regards,
Neil

Post by **Silversurfer** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:29 pm

Hi Likay

I think I'm just gonna buy a iZ3d 22 inch monitor when I get five other people to join mtbs3D.com and if the shipping costs isn't too prohibitive to the UK. The pound is stronger than the dollar at the moment so I don't know whether to wait or take the plunge as I had the money now? confuse smiley. It will be nice if somebody was selling they Zalman iZ3-D 17 inch monitor in this forum as I would snap it up in a heartbeat. I wonder how much RAGEdemon paid to get his iZ 3-D 22 inch monitor to the UK - I will have to pm him.

1: Do you think I will need to buy a 7900 series NVIDIA graphics card or will I be able to get by on my 8800 series?

2: I seem to remember that they NVIDIA drivers were going to be this the only in the future, is this correct and if so does this mean that I will lose the effects of modern 3-D games like postprocessing etc if I go down the IZ3-D monitor route with NVIDIA drivers?

3: which version of the iZ3d drivers are you currently using and are you using Windows XP or Windows Vista?

4: When I mentioned "digital terrestrial viewing" I was talking about my TV desktop box (Nokia D2 box) which I currently have linked to my 30 inch monitor via composite input so I was wondering whether I could put this up to the iZ3d 22 inch monitor to watch TV in 3-D?

5: Or is there no way of watching television signals in 3-D at the moment on the Zalman monitor other than a desktop box, and I was thinking of a high-definition Sky desktop box or a Virgin Media high-definition V+ TiVo type box for the future TV viewing in 3-D ?

6: it just seems that I'll get more value for money if I could use the iZ3D for more than just Windows applications and Windows gaming, although I know you can watch video playback via the Windows media player I'm not sure if ANY OR ALL multimedia playback is rendered in 3-D with the iZ3d 22 inch monitor and standard of high-definition decoding NVIDIA or Zelman videos drivers?

I do know that e-dimensional sell its product Virtual Fx 3-D TV converter but it only works with NTSC CRT televisions and not PAL so I won't be bothering with this solution as I live in the UK which uses PAL!

7: I was wondering why I cannot find the Zalman iZ3-D 17 inch monitor for sale on they Zalman website, has it been discontinued?

8: I'm trying to find a review for the iZ 3-D S.-view application you mentioned but I can't find it even on the Zalman website, I'll try and Google it.

9: I do have a 20 inch Cornerstone CRT monitor so I think I will buy a pair of shutter Glasses first and foremost, which ones would you recommend?

10: Should I entertain the e-dimensional shutter Glasses or are they not worth it the money? will be NVIDIA drivers work with any 3-D shutter Glasses on a CRT monitor?

I know these are a lot of questions so I thank you for being patient, I just want to make my decision
the right one as I am a newbie to 3-D gaming.

Cheers, I owe you a large pint when you visit the UK - Silversurfer

Post by **timothyscholz** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 5:08 pm

Hi Silversurfer, long time lurker, first time poster...
I don't have an S3d solution now, as I am waiting out this driver situation, but I am leaning towards the IZ3d monitor.

After reading your post, it seems that you may be confused as to Zalman/IZ3d. I am trying to clear it up a bit, but those more knowledgeable out there please feel free to correct anything I write.

The IZ3d is not made by Zalman. It is its own company. You can find out about it at www.iz3d.com.

The IZ3d doesn't use Nvidia stereo drivers as it has its own. These IZ3d drivers support 8800 cards, and also support post processing, and Direct X8, and 9. But not yet 10. You can use the IZ3d with XP or Vista. The forums have been saying that the IZ3d Drivers are very good, and are updated regularly.

The Zalman monitor is the one which uses the Nvidia drivers. Its my understanding that you can currently use the older Nvidia drivers and a 6XXX, or 7XXX card. However if you want to use your 8800, you will need the upcoming Nvidia drivers which will need Vista and which don't yet support post processing.
The Zalman monitors are sold under the name Trimon and are available in 19 (ZM-M190)and 22 inch (ZM-M220W) sizes. You should be able to find info on these by checking out the Zalman website (www.zalman.com).

Cheers,
Tim

Post by **Likay** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 5:51 pm

To play with nvidiadrivers you can have a 7950 at max (sli is no option). This maybe change in the future but in that case it'll probably take a while.

The iz3d and their drivers are the best option to play modern games with all the eyecandy

. The developers works actively all the time to increase performance/compability with games and their drivers also support postprocessing. You can use every computerconfiguration with a graphiccard with two separate video outputs. Multicoreprocessors are no problem and the 8800-series works perfectly and so does ATI. The better stuffs you have in your comp, the better performance you get. Vista 32 is also supported. Not sure with laptops even if they have two videooutputs.

Now the few cons but probably not for long: No 64-bit support yet but this is high on iz3d devs priority list. No opengl support yet but there are not many games running that any way. In that way you can use the nvidia 91.31 combo with the Neurok option in the stereodriver to play on the iz3d (it has opengl support). SLI is not an option since nvidia disabled all but one output in the sli-mode. Don't know about ATI/Crossfire though. Sometimes it's even better having the nvidia driver installed running the iz3d driver. Simply disable the nvidia driver when running the iz3d-driver. Having both drivers installed on a system (well, my system with the games i tested) doesn't cause any trouble if you just remember to disable the driver you temporary not use.

For now i'm using winxp with iz3d 1.07 on a comp with c2d e6600 + 8800GTX. When i want to play on the big screen (nvidia drivers only) i have to disable the 8800 and play using a 7900 card .

I know absolutely nothing more about transmissions in stereo-3d than we don't have it in our country. Chances to view with the monitor are probably very small but i can't really tell.

So far i can play videocontent without any problems with both the nvidiadrivers (using the player from Peter Wimmer) and the iz3d with their player. Both of them support just about all videoformats i think. You need codecs for them though.

Zalman and iz3d are two different manufacturers so it's not strange not finding any iz3d content on the Zalman site.

Regarding Zalman monitors it'll will be the only product supported by future Nvidia drivers (as it looks now). They're said to be working with Vista, multicore, and 8800-series of cards but no drivers have yet surfaced though.

S-view (a little bit slow but i love it) and the stereoplayer for the iz3d is free downloads at the iz3d site but they only support the iz3d.

Regarding shutterglasses i have only experience of E-Dimensionals wireless glasses. They work perfectly using the nvidia drivers: A tip: Get the wired ones because the reach of the transmitter isn't more than the length of the cable of the wired ones. They also finish off batteries quite well (one change/week when you're playing much).
Here you can check different fabrics and google on: http://www.stereo3d.com/shutter.htm
Before bying shutterglasses: Check the performance of your crt by connecting it to the computer to check the maximum refresh rate. To get a decent result it should be able to handle at least 85Hz on desired resolution to keep flicker down. Of course you can view 3D on lower refreshrates but the flicker sometimes ruins a lot of the total impression.

Almost forgot: The iz3d driver (latest version 1.07) also supports anaglyph mode (red/blue) glasses. You can download it for free and try it so you know what to expect from the driver and also get familiar with 3d-settings! Works on just about every computer and monitors.

Ps: Thanx @ the pint-o-beer! You can try zipping (Winrar or 7zip) the pint and e-mail it. Would be great if it's also well chilled! Then we cheer together!

@Neil: I'll upload every images i have on imageshack related to 3d to this forumgallery. My mind from the beginning was not to trash down the gallery but since the number of subfolders now has increased and to suitable foldernames this indeed looks like the best idea for now.

cheers

Post by **Neil** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 6:22 pm

Let me know what folder options you need if it helps.

Regards,
Neil