Introduction
"stereo2" was designed to project static geometry in a stereoscopic
projection environment using OpenGL assisted 3D cards.
It initially supported frame sequential stereo (active glasses)
and was subsequently updated to support dual screen stereo (passive
glasses). It was compiled under various flavours of UNIX including,
but not limited to, OSF, Linux, and Mac OS-X.
Input data
"stereo2" can read two types of data file, GEOM and OFF files. GEOM
files are the usual way of describing geometry for stereo2, the format
is described here, they
can describe basic geometry including points, lines, faces, spheres,
cylinders, cones, etc. An example of what a GEOM file looks like is
given below.
# Example geom file, this is a comment
l 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 red x axis
l 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0.5 0 green y axis
l 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 blue z axis
s 0 0 0 0.5 1.0 0.5 0.5 ball
f4 -1 -1 -1
1 -1 -1
1 -1 1
-1 -1 1 0.5 0.5 0.5 bottom face of cube
f4 -1 -1 1
-1 -1 -1
-1 1 -1
-1 1 1 0.5 0.5 0.5 left face
p 0 0 0 1 0 0
The second format called OFF is a file with
two sections, the first lists the vertices and the second describes
the faces in terms of the vertex indices. Each section is preceded with
the number of items in that section. The vertex section is just a list
of x,y,z coordinates, normal, and colour starting at index 0.
Each line of the face section
starts with an integer indicating the number of vertices and is followed
by that many vertex index numbers.
An example OFF file is given below with 1022 vertices and 376 faces.
he first two faces have 3 vertices, the third 4 vertices, and the
fourth is a line (2 vertices).
1022
1.0 0.5 4.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 0.0
2.3 5.4 1.2 0.0 0.5 0.3 1.0 0.2 0.2
: : :
: : :
376
3 1 0 3
3 5 3 7
4 2 3 600 601
2 5 40
: : :
: : :
In addition to the above geometry formats, stereo2 can read preset
camera positions (see the save camera menu item and subsequent file
for the format) and flight paths.
Command line options
The command line options and keystrokes are displayed by typing
"stereo2 -h", the output is listed below although since this is
an evolving package the exact options may change in time.
Usage: stereo2 [command line options]
Command line options -h this text
-s active stereo mode
-ss dual screen stereo
-f full screen mode
-fps n target frame rate
-r [wfds] render mode
-as start in autospin mode
-ap fn start in autopilot mode
-c show construction lines
-og open geom file
-oo open off file
-vf open view file
-bg r g b background colour (default=black)
-sh n change default material shininess
-dm n delta movement
-bs background star field (default=off)
-bb show bounding box (default=off)
-cd collision detection (default=off)
-cw clockwise polygons (default=CCW)
-cf back face culling (default=off)
-fly start off in fly mode
-walk start in walking mode
Key Strokes h home position for camera (also "home")
f focus camera
1...7 standard camera views
i,k translate camera up, down
j,l translate camera left, right
-,+ increase/decrease velocity
page up/down zoom in or out
[,] roll anticlockwise, clockwise
<,> increase/decrease 3D cursor
w write the current image to disk
W write a higher resolution image to disk
c append camera position to "camera.path"
p create PovRay rendering
left arrow rotate camera left
right arrow rotate camera right
down arrow rotate camera down
up arrow rotate camera up
D delete all geometry
q quit (also ESC, "end")
Function keys f1 toggle screen info
f2 toggle 0 eye separation
f3 toggle frame recording
f4 toggle construction lines
f5 toggle bounding box
The most important options above regarding stereo are "-s" for frame
sequential stereo or "-ss" for passive side-by-side stereo. In both cases
it is common to also the '-f" for full screen. The software will make a
best guess at the correct stereo settings, these will almost always be
suitable when an object is being viewed from the outside. The focal point
will be set to the center of the bounding box of the object, the camera will
be outside the bounding box so the whole object is visible, the eye separation
will be 1/30 of the zero parallax distance.
Navigation
The most common navigation is performed with the mouse or the arrow keys,
these move the camera around the environment (they do not move the object).
If you get lost, the "h" key will return the camera to the default
position.
Saving images
Images of the current screen contents can be written to disk as TGA files
by pressing the "w" key.
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