Only a few years ago, seeing in 3-D
meant peering through a pair of red-and-blue glasses, or trying not to go
cross-eyed in front of a page of fuzzy dots. It was great at the time, but 3-D
technology has moved on. Scientists know more about how our vision works than
ever before, and our computers are more powerful than ever before -- most of us
have sophisticated components in our computer that are dedicated to producing
realistic graphics. Put those two things together, and you will see how 3-D
graphics have really begun to take off.
Most computer users are familiar with
3-D games. Back in the 90s, computer enthusiasts were stunned by the game
Castle Wolfe stein 3D, which took place in a maze-like castle. It may have been
constructed from blocky tiles, but the castle existed in three dimensions --
you could move forward and backward, or hold down the appropriate key and see
your viewpoint spin through 360 degrees. Back then, it was revolutionary and
quite amazing. Nowadays, gamers enjoy ever more complicated graphics -- smooth,
three-dimensional environments complete with realistic lighting and complex
simulations of real-life physics grace our screens.
But that s the problem -- the screen.
The game itself may be in three dimensions, and the player may be able to look
wherever he wants with complete freedom, but at the end of the day the picture
is displayed on a computer monitor...and that’s a flat surface.
That s where PC 3-D glasses come in.
They are designed to convince your brain that your monitor is showing a real,
three-dimensional object. In order to understand quite how this works, we need
to know what sort of work our brain does with the information our eyes give it.
Once we know about that, we will be able to understand just how 3-D glasses do
their job.
A
Brief History of 3-D Glasses:
So, we've seen that although there might
be something complex going on behind the scenes, with the right equipment we
can just sit back and let our eyes do the work. Of course, the technology
wasn't always so simple; there have, in fact, been four generations leading up
to today's 3-D glasses.
The first generation modified the games
themselves to make them compatible with stereoscopic 3-D. The games' creators
had to specifically support each type of LCD glasses -- hardly an ideal
situation. There was no guarantee that the glasses you'd bought would work with
your favorite game. As you can imagine, that didn't appeal to many people; so a
second solution was developed.
This second solution was to override the
game, actually taking over the computer's screen and altering what was
displayed. As far as the game was concerned, it was just doing what it normally
did, except, of course, that some of the computer's time was taken up
processing the image to make it 3-D. The result was slower performance and
low-resolution, blocky images. It did work with hundreds of games, though, and
that was a definite improvement.
The third generation worked in a similar
way, modifying the graphics driver but also maintaining the resolution of the
images -- no more blocky graphics! Unfortunately, it wasn't compatible with
many games, though it was a definite forerunner to the 3-D glasses we have nowadays.
Article
By
S.Muthu
Priyaa
Pre-Final
year
