Three common options for passive stereoscopic systems.
Written by Paul Bourke
March 2008
For passive polaroid stereoscopic projection
(see examples here)
there are a few different ways the computer and graphics card can be connected to
the projectors and monitors. The following assumes an XGA stereoscopic system but
the principles apply to higher resolution displays.
Three approaches are illustrated below, each has it's relative merits.
Notes
From the software perspective option 2 and 3 appear identical.
The software only sees one display even through it is a mirror pair.
Option 2 is interesting in that it can be used with a laptop which generally only
have a single video output port.
The main difference between option 2 and 3 is simplicity at a higher cost. That is,
option 3 has fewer components but displays capable of at least 2048x768 are somewhat
more expensive than two video splitters/amplifiers.
Option 2 has some significant advantages over 1 for some operating systems which
require special window manager calls to open a single window full-screen across
two displays. Option 2 presents a single display to the software and thus there
is generally wider range of tools that can be used.
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