3D Vision Blog

Nvidia has just announced that it is starting to ship through its partners the 3D Vision Pro shutter glasses that are targeted at professionals such as engineers, designers, architects and computational chemists who work with complex 3D designs to see their work in greater detail. The 3D Vision Pro Stereo 3D solution is designed to be used together with Nvidia’s Quadro professional graphics solutions and it consists of wireless active shutter glasses that use radio communication instead of infrared as the consumer 3D Vision glasses do, an RF communication hub (using 2.4GHz radio frequency to transmit) and managements software that allows you to verify that the glasses are operating and see their current battery levels. It is interesting to note that looking at the official picture of the Pro glasses above, they do seem to be quite similar to the consumer 3D Vision glasses with minor differences and the transmitter looks the same on the outside for both, although for the Pro it is RF based and for the non-Pro it is IR based.

The 3D Vision Pro solution should be available already from Nvidia’s authorized channel partners and these include PNY Technologies in Europe, ELSA in Japan, and Leadtek in Asia Pacific. The recommended prices are $349 (USD) for each pair of stereoscopic 3D shutter glasses, and $399 (USD) for the RF hub. You will need a single RF transmitter and you can attach multiple pairs of glasses to it, depending on your specific needs and requirements for a single stereoscopic 3D capable system. You will of course need one RF transmitter for each system that you want to be working on, but you should be able to move the glasses pairings between different systems. 3D Vision Pro currently supports Windows XP, Vista and 7 (both 32- and 64-bit) operating systems and should also soon have support for Linux 32- and 64-bit.

The glasses should be able to provide you with up to 30-45 meters (100-150 feet) without the need of direct line of sight operating range, so you should be able to freely roam around large scale stereo 3D visualizations such as video walls for example. The Pro shutter glasses should be compatible with pretty much all 3D Vision-capable displays, but like their consumer variant they cannot be used for example with HDMI 1.4 3D HDTVs. And the last thing you should be aware of is that you should be able to use the 3D Vision Pro shutter glasses together with a GeForce and not only with a Quadro GPU, however with GeForce it will be just like with the consumer 3D Vision glasses, but due to the high price difference it will be kind of pointless to purchase the Pro version and to use it for consumer applications such as stereoscopic 3D gaming.

- For more information about the Nvidia 3D Vision Pro shutter glasses…

The Nvidia 3D Vision active shutter glasses use a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that normally should be able to provide you with up to 40 hours of use per single full charge which is nice, but it could’ve been easily even better. The reason for that being that Nvidia is using a 3.7V 50 mAh battery that is located on the right side of the glasses and as you can clearly see from the picture above of the battery, there is quite a lot of free space left around the battery. So there could be a more powerful battery instead of the 50 mAh battery providing some more hours of use per single charge – these is the space and it probably won’t increase the cost much anyway…

But since I’ve had a spare 3.7V 120 mAh lithium-ion rechargeable battery lying around that I was not using, I’ve decided to try replacing the standard battery of the glasses with that one. That of course requires a little soldering and desoldering, but the good news is that the 120 mAh battery fits just fine in the free space that is available for the battery. This means that Nvidia could easily use a 100/120 mAh battery instead of the 50 mAh one they’ve decided to go for and doubling the capacity of the battery should pretty much also double the time you get to use the glasses with a single charge.

After replacing and recharging the new battery everything was functioning perfectly fine, I’ve already been using the glasses for a few hours, but I’ll need quite some time in order to check the full time they will provide with a single charge. However theoretically speaking with a 120 mAh capacity the battery should be able to offer increased time of use from the normal 40 hours to around 100 hours which should be much better – charging less often and longer battery life.

And here I’m thinking about the 20 hours expected with a single charge by the 3D Vision Pro glasses, if they are still using the 50 mAh battery then it gets half the working time because of the RF two-way communication. So with a 120 mAh battery the operating time could’ve been increased to lets say 50 hours which should be much better. But we’ll have to wait a bit more in order to be able to confirm that. And here now I’m thinking about all those first generation of active shutter glasses sold for the new 3D HDTVs that come mostly with lithium batteries offering just single use and not being rechargeable, but at the same time not being cheaper than the 3D Vision glasses either. Lets see how brands like Panasonic, Samsung and Sony will deal with offering rechargeable active shutter glasses for their 3D-ready television sets and frankly I hate it when I want to use something and the battery suddenly dies and needs to be replaced, especially if you don’t have a replacement handy.

There was a lot of talk and rumors going around about a new version of the 3D Vision glasses being worked on by Nvidia, and apparently these were all true as Nvidia today announced officially 3D Vision Pro. However these glasses are intended only for professional users that also have Quadro cards and are not intended and will not work with GeForce GPUs, at least for now, but there is probably nothing that prevents Nvidia from releasing a consumer version of these new glasses in the not so distant future…

Anyway, lets take a look on what is new and different in the 3D Vision Pro glasses as compared to the normal 3D Vision glasses that you can also currently use with Quadro or GeForce GPUs. First of all the infrared (IR) transmitter is now gone with all its negative sides and is being replaced by a radio frequency (RF) communication system. This removes the need of having a direct line of sight between the glasses and the transmitter and should also get rid of any interferences with other infrared devices that might cause an annoying flicker of the shutters. The RF communication is also not a single way one like with the IR transmitter just sending a synchronization signal, but it is now two way communication that allows the glasses not only to receive the sync signal from the PC, but also to report their status to the computer. The RF communication should also allow more problem free use of multiple 3D Vision Pro equipped systems packed in smaller spaces and should also allow increased range of up to about 30-45 meters (100-150 feet). The drawback coming from that change in communication (the most likely reason) is that the battery life you get with a single charge is halved – from 40 hours with IR to 20 hours with RF, but that should not be such an issue for most people… these are still rechargeable batteries.

What is not yet clear is if the shutter glasses will actually be improved to allow faster response, to pass more light etc. important things or they will be pretty much the same as what the current generation of consumer 3D Vision glasses offers. I really do hope that we are soon going to see improved glasses, and not only in terms of communication with the PC, but in terms of improved quality and user experience too. Another interesting thing is the mentioned accelerometer and digital compass that can be used to track the user’s head movement (not clear if they will be present yet) and the data from them can really help in improving immersion if it is used for interaction with the applications. And if we consider it for gaming, the potential there is even higher for making even more realistic experiences when playing your favorite games in stereo 3D mode…

And now the not so attractive part – the pricing, which is a bit high, but considering this is a professional product the higher price is expected, however a consumer implementation should be much more affordable. So the Nvidia 3D Vision Pro stereoscopic solutions will be available in October directly from Nvidia and from authorized resellers such as PNY Technologies with a recommended price of $349 USD for the shutter glasses, and $399 USD for the RF transmitter hub.

Nvidia is currently demonstrating 3D Vision Pro stereoscopic solutions at SIGGRAPH 2010, so if you are at the event and can pass by the NVIDIA booth, #717, South Hall, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, from July 27-29, 2010 you will be more than welcome to share some more details and your experience from the new glasses here… ;)

- Visit the official 3D Vision Pro website for more information…