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3D Stereo Graphics for Macs?

Posted by Cliff on from the remember-those-red-and-blue-glasses dept.

goombah99 asks: " I'm trying to view protein molecular models in 3D in my Mac OS X equipped office. I've demo-ed StereoGraphics CrystalEyes glasses and could not get them to work: I tried them with both a G4 (ATI rage 128 pro graphics adapter) and with a 800MHz Powerbook G4 with an external CRT. I've considered the NuVision (AKA MacNaughten) passive display system but it wont work with my preferred Molecular Graphics application PyMOL, which uses a 'blue-line' frame synchronizer rather than an 'over/under' synchronizer or Quad-buffer scheme. PyMOL is hardware accelerated so provides nicely rendered and shaded molecular images. Then there's the question of what graphics card to use--preferably one that does not require special drivers (that could break on an OS upgrade). I've tried several discussion groups but without success. Can anyone provide a success story for viewing molecular graphics in 3D on a Mac? Can anyone discuss the merits of different schema (blue line, quad buffer, stereo-ready card, etc), and suggest other molecular graphics programs for Mac OS X."

29 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. update by goombah99 · · Score: 3, Informative

    just tried the Gforce 2 from Nvidia. (stock card in the G4 I tested) this also did not activate the CrystalEyes Emitter.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  2. Buy a PC by foooo · · Score: 2, Troll

    For $1000-2000 you could have a decently fast computer that you won't have ANY difficulty running 3D applications with 3d goggles.

    (This will of course be modded down as troll)

    BUT if you are sharing this application with others, it may be worthwhile to set up a "shared" computer that can deal with things that are a pain in the butt at your Mac oriented office.

    ~foooo

    1. Re:Buy a PC by presearch · · Score: 3, Funny

      Without getting too deep into the technical details, the problem with using a PC is that Windows sucks.

    2. Re:Buy a PC by shaitand · · Score: 1

      so don't use windows?

    3. Re:Buy a PC by kwerle · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Without getting too deep into the technical details, the problem with using a PC is that Windows sucks.

      Sucks or not - they do the stereo thing perfectly and trivially.

      [typed from an ibook]

    4. Re:Buy a PC by foooo · · Score: 1

      I'm happy with my situational ethics =)

      If stereo imaging is easy and trivial on one platform, and mind bending on another... I'm going to pick the trivial one everytime (given an unlimited budget)

      ~fooo

    5. Re:Buy a PC by foooo · · Score: 1

      if (this.MacImplementation.cost > this.EntirelyNewX86Implementation.cost)
      {
      BusinessRules.Check.CostVSBenefit(this);
      if (this.costVSBenefit.result == EntirelyNewX86Implementation);
      {
      this.implement.EntirelyNewX86Implementation("Stop questioning your Holy War Morals, because this is a business not a religion");
      }
      else
      {
      this.implement.MacImplementation("Cheer Loudly");
      }
      }

      the extra semicolon is /.'s fault... not mine.

      ~foooo

  3. 3d chemistry by jterry94 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I use mac spartan. It uses the old fashioned red/green glasses but works pretty well.

    Jeff

  4. They do have a Mac product by Orbital+Sander · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...but it seems to be a special version of the CrystalEyes product. According to the Q&A page, you need a Radeon or geForce card; Rage is not supported. You also need a plain ole CRT display as opposed to one of the spiffy new LCD ones.

    --

    What Would the Fab Five Do?
    1. Re:They do have a Mac product by nomel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No LCD's is probably because of their low refresh, and slow pixel times.

      If you are showing half the frames half of the time, at 75Hz, that's only about 37 Hz per eyeball...that would be awfull. You would need 120 Hz to get 60 per eye...which is watchable...but still pretty awfull.

    2. Re:They do have a Mac product by misterpies · · Score: 1


      Not to mention the 24 frames per second you get in a movie theatre. Sheesh, no wonder I get a headache every time I go to the cinema...

      --
      The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
  5. Try VMD by mjhsieh · · Score: 3, Informative

    3D Stereo on VMD should work on Mac. Please visit VMD's website for more information.

  6. Good luck by Greg+Couch · · Score: 5, Informative

    Having written stereo code for a molecular graphics program, UCSF chimera, I really want quad-buffered stereo in a window so my program can present a modern GUI and a stereo image at the same time. I don't like blue-line stereo because it is for full screen stereo and that screws up the GUI. Unfortunately for the Mac, I know of no graphics cards that support quad-buffered stereo. We have asked Apple about it and they are "considering" it. Please keep pressuring Apple to add quad-buffered stereo support -- it will only happen if Apple does it because Apple writes its own graphics card drivers. In the mean time, check out the micropol displays from Vrex. We have preliminary support for them in chimera and I'm sure you could get Warren Delano to add support to pymol.

    1. Re:Good luck by Greg+Couch · · Score: 2, Informative
      We still consider the OSX version of chimera to be a beta version primarily because the Aqua version of the Tcl/Tk toolkit (that chimera uses) still needs work. Consequently, we are currently supplying a OSX X11 version that runs well under the Apple X server.

      Chimera uses OpenGL, so yes it exploits the graphics accelerators. Apple is using chimera to help debug its graphics drivers, so the performance should only improve.

      Quad-buffered stereo is double-buffered for both the left and the right eye images so they always remain in sync. While any stereo technique has to quad-buffer, if the OpenGL driver exposes its quad-buffering API, then the native windowing system has to support stereo in a window.

      The VRex is interesting because it makes odd scan lines go to one eye and even to the other. So even though you loose half your vertical resolution for stereo images, mono images (the GUI) are unaltered.

      As for for PyMol versus chimera, you'll have to do the comparison yourself. We both have our strengths and weaknesses and both are constantly improving.

  7. Formac ProCyber3D card by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Came with a set if IR synced LCD shutter glasses, and handled any program which used OpenGL.

    www.Formac.com

    1. Re:Formac ProCyber3D card by azav · · Score: 1

      Too bad this product was discontinued 2 years ago and nobody carries it now.

      --
      - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
  8. Old submission? by PapaZit · · Score: 3, Informative
    I don't know the first think about working with 3-d molecular apps, but when I went to the PyMOL site listed in the submission, I saw the following on the main page. It seems to answer the question.
    (4/18/2003) Accelerated OpenGL Hardware Recommendations (updated 4/30/2003): As we recently updated our development systems, we had a chance to obtain and test some exciting new graphics hardware! Thus, we can now provide the following endorsements:
    • For monocular visualization under Windows, we recommend the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (approx. $400). This is by far the fastest OpenGL engine we have ever seen PyMOL run on!
    • For stereo visualization under Windows, we are re-evaluting our recommendation of the nVidia Quadro4 750XGL (approx. $500) because we and other users have encountered image stability problems (on Windows only!).
    • For monocular visualization under Linux, we recommend the ATI Radeon 8500 (approx. $200). This high-performance card is now supported out-of-the-box with full OpenGL acceleration under RedHat 9.0 (XFree86 4.3) -- no manual configuration is required!
    • For stereo visualization under Linux, we recommend the ATI FireGL2 (approx. $600). It is not the fastest card in the world, but IT SIMPLY WORKS. If you need better performance, go with the nVidia Quadro4 750XGL, but be prepared for driver updates.
    • For stereo visualization under Mac OSX, we recommend the nVidia GeForce4 Titanium (approx. $400). However, we would expect even better performance from the ATI Radeon 9700 (not yet tested).
    • For monocular visualization on a laptop, we recommend the nVidia GeForce4 Go 460 chip running under Windows. However, we also expect excellent performance from the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 chip, which will likely do better with smooth (antialiased) lines.
    --
    Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
    1. Re:Old submission? by nomel · · Score: 1

      What, are you surprised? This was posted by Cliff.

  9. just get an SGI by Gizzmonic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    SGI stereo-capable displays are hellacheap on eBay. I got a 20-inch monitor for $189.

    SGI is losing ground, but they still own the visualization market...for good reason.

    --
    (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
    1. Re:just get an SGI by Greg+Couch · · Score: 1
      The display isn't the problem on the Mac, it's the lack of stereo-capable OpenGL drivers.

      That said, for molecular modeling, a $2500 PC (say $1500 for the PC and $1000 for the workstation class graphics card) runs circles around a $12000+ SGI workstation. The graphics drivers support the latest variations of OpenGL and the quality of implementation of the graphics drivers is finally catching up to SGI's.

      I love our SGI Octane2 V12, but I can't recommend it.

  10. Stereographics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Have a look at this Q and A

    http://www.macinchem.fsnet.co.uk/Macosx/Stereo for mac Q and A.doc.sit

  11. Arr Laddy! by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yee must remove thy Eye Patch befor using them "Threee Deee" Glassess.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  12. PyMOL is open source by lcracker · · Score: 1

    Why don't you just code (or pay a PyMOL developer to code) an extension to PyMOL to support whatever hardware device and stereographic method that is convenient for you on the platform of your choice?

  13. Re:How about a link? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative


    Have a look at

    http://www.macinchem.fsnet.co.uk for a listing of a number of molecular graphics apps for MacOSX

    DrC

  14. 3D Stereo Graphics for Macs? by flyingtrout · · Score: 1

    I've been able to get stereo to work with pymol using the StereoGraphics setup and the Stereo Enhanced Version of Pymol; I was using a beta version of Pymol. Version 0.88 now has stereo support (but I have not tried this version).

    NuVision does not at the present time have a pass through that works correctly....I did get their emittor to work using the StereoGraphics pass through.

    All of the work was done on a 1 GHz PowerBook with external CRT that can do above 100 MHz.

    For Pymol and other programs to work they have to have the capability to put the system into Full Screen mode (with Blue line windowing does not work).

    Pymol performed great under this setup.

    1. Re:3D Stereo Graphics for Macs? by flyingtrout · · Score: 1

      The setup was straightforward with the StereoGraphics Corp. E2Mac Emittor: http://www.stereographics.com/products/crystaleyes workstation/indexmac.html using an external monitor.

      There are details on setup on their pages...the only issue is pricing for their equipment.

      Initial Testing was done with StereoGlut from Apple, building the executable according to the directions using Project Builder from the Developer Tools: http://developer.apple.com/samplecode/Sample_Code/ Graphics_3D/GLUTStereo.htm

      This little app has the ability to throw the display into full screen mode and blue line. It has a 3-D model that if your setup is working correctly will look pretty cool.

  15. Re:How about a link? by mjhsieh · · Score: 1

    Oops, it's at http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/

  16. Re:EXCELLENT! by flyingtrout · · Score: 1

    No Swindle...the original stuff I tested was with the setup sold by StereoGraphics. This works fine. The Nuvision stuff also works...but they do not have a VGA pass through working for Macs...only for standard 3-Pin. The dongle supplied by Stereographics does work with the Nuvison equipment....yes much less expensive. The problem is wiring up the correct pin configuration dongle that will allow the Mac to work. The graphics card is the standard internal PowerBook card: ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 with 64MB of DDR SDRAM. The monitor was an off the shelf...capable of doing 120 MHz.

  17. I've used the Formac by cholland · · Score: 1

    I've used the Formac Performance3 (Permedia) card with the glasses it comes with. The card is hopelessly outdated now so it's not installed in my box anymore but it worked flawlessly with ANY OpenGL program that was running. I'm not sure if Formac has a current card that will support the glasses, but you can check. If not, then you could always just buy one of the cards off of ebay or something since it would probably be good enough to drive the things that you are doing if you are currently using a Rage128.

    Unreal looked nice in 3D, although it does tend to get you sick after a long time of playing. ;)

    LCDs are not going to be able to refresh fast enough for shutter glasses like the CrystalEyes. You will need to have a monitor that has a refresh rate of at least 100Hz.

    I've worked with the CrystalEyes products in an SGI CAVE setting for quite sometime and they are a fine product. You should be able to get some information from them as to why your setup isn't working.