Vizard 8 » Reference » Stereo & Displays » Stereo Basics » Stereo displays
8.0
There are different types of displays that offer visualization features beyond that of a standard desktop monitor. To let you tap into these features, Vizard offers a number of specialty stereo modes documented in the Stereo -> Stereo Modes section. In addition, Vizard includes built-in commands that configure the stereo mode, field of view, and other initial settings for many commonly used displays. These hardware specific commands are documented in the Stereo -> Display Devices section.
For instance, you might decide that you want to enhance the depth quality of your real-time rendering by utilizing 3D stereoscopic glasses. These glasses work in conjunction with projection screens and quality desktop monitors and add the stereoscopic cues providing an extremely compelling sense of depth.
Or in another scenario, you may be interested in using specialized immersive virtual reality hardware to experience your world. Two common methods of visual immersion are head-mounted displays and CAVEs. Vizard supports a wide variety of head-mounted displays and it is very likely that any HMD that you have is already supported. Besides HMDs, the other common approach, CAVEs, involves engulfing the user inside a projection cube in which up to all 6 surfaces are imaged using back projection technologies. Since the user normally stands inside one of these cubes, this approach involves an infrastructure of considerable size and cost compared to HMDs.
Head mounted displays (HMDs) are a special class of displays because the relation between the eyes and the display surface to not change as the user moves. When this relation does change, as with external displays, care must be taken to correctly adjust the projection to compensate for this relation. In other words, to render to an external display correctly, not only does a 3D scene need to be perspectively projected onto a planar surface, but the projective "distortion" applied must correct for the angle and distance from which the device is being viewed.