3D Vision Blog

If you remember I’ve written that the shutter glasses designed by Nvidia for the GeForce 3D Vision are way looking much better than previous such products, but here I made some pictures so you can even see that for yourself. In the left of the images you can see the glasses from Nvidia and on the right are eDimensional’s wireless 3D Vision glasses, the difference in design is clearly visible…

Besides being more good-looking Nvidia’s glasses are also more comfortable and adjustable to the needs of different users, not that Edimenstional’s glasses don’t have such ideas embedded, but their design is still not that good. By making shutter glasses you need to design them so that they not only don’t look weird, but also to be comfortable even when wearing them for longer periods of time…

Not that the shutters on eDimensional’s glasses are almost square in form, where as the glasses from Nvidia are wider and this is because of big difference in time when the products were designed and first released on market. eDimensional’s 3D Vision glasses are quite old product, as far as I remember released 5 or even more years ago when the CRT displays with aspect ration of 4:3 or 5:4 were used almost everywhere. But now most of the new displays are widescreen with aspect of 16:10 and 16:9 so having wider shutters is not only good, but is actually a requirement in order to have the wide filed of view needed for the new LCD monitors. Another big difference is that eDimensional’s glasses use 2 lithium batteries for power that are not rechargeable and you have to replace them from time to time, although they last longer than the rechargeable battery available in Nvidia’s glasses. Anyway with up to 40 hours on a single charge and an easy and widely used mini USB connection for recharging there is not much to complain about Nvidia’s 3D Vision glasses.

Here I have not provided pictures of the IR transmitters of the two types of wireless shutter glasses, but you should know that eDimensional’s solution does not rely on USB connection and actually requires you to connect it between your video card’s output and the monitor you are using. And you can already guess that it utilizes an analogue DSUB15 video connector in order to do that and the drivers are supposed to do everything else. Now, when talking about drivers, eDimensional had a bit of an advantage, becuse they used their own drivers that were compatible with both ATI and Nvidia video cards, although the glasses also worked with Nvidia’s old stereo drivers. Currently eDimensional’s drivers are quite out of date and not very usable, and the newer stereo drivers from Nvidia no longer support them (along with many other older devices!). If you own eDimensional 3D Vision glasses or any other shutter glasses you may try to run them with IZ3D’s driver, but the success rate depends on a lot of factors and the results will still not be as good as when using Nvidia’s 3D Vision. Not to mention the fact that if you intend to use the IZ3D driver (besides just quick testing) with something else than their 3D displays you’ll have to buy a license and the shutter glasses support that is currently available is still not very good, so don’t get your hopes too high.

The wireless shutter glasses are just one part of the Geforce 3D Vision, the other major part is a small USB powered “black box” or with other and IR sender box that is used to synchronize the flicker of the glasses with the image available on the screen. What nVidia did very well is designing their shutter glasses without any annoying cables and to actually look cool, especially compared for instance to eDimensional’s solution and other LC-shutter glasses previously made available during the era of the CRT displays.

Besides looking way cooler than before and very similar to normal sunglasses (of course there is more to be done) the glasses are simple and straightforward for usage. You should also note that the “screens” or better described as shutters in front of each eye that are built into the glasses are wider giving you better peripheral vision and making them easier to for wide screen displays such as the 22″ Samsung and ViewSonic available as a bundle with the glasses. You can notice on the right side of the glasses (right in the picture above) the infrared receiver that gets the synchronization signal from the transmitter. And because an infrared signal (part of the light spectrum, normally invisible to the human eye) is being used there is a need for direct line of sight between the receiver and the transmitter. But that isn’t a big problem, because the transmitter box is well enough designed to provide that signal in every possible position and configuration as you’ll see later on…

Looking at the glasses from above you can notice that there is a button and a small LED light indicating the status of the glasses (the right part of the glasses on the picture above). You just need to press the button when you want to use the glasses so that they can be turned on, there is no need to turn them off and you cannot do that by pressing the button again. If the glasses loose the synchronization signal from the transmitter for some time they should turn off automatically to preserve the battery that is being used to power them.

Flipping the glasses on the other side you see the bottom part (the right side from the previous picture is now on the left). Here, just below the power button is a mini USB connector that is being used to charge the internal lithium-ion battery that powers the 3D Vision glasses. And between the charging USB connector and the power on button is the rechargeable battery that provides about 30 to 40 hours use of the glasses on a single charge. The last part of the glasses that you should be aware of is the interchangeable rubber padding that touches your nose when you are wearing the glasses so that they feel comfortable even when wearing them continuously for a few hours. You have three different sizes to choose from so that you can try and see which one fits you best and feels comfortable, but have in mind that the one that best suits you might not be very comfortable to someone else. So if you give the glasses to someone else to try them you might as well offer him to change the rubber padding so that they are relay comfortable, if there is a need to…