Although I´m using red/blue glasses, I´ve never been successful to view 3D images on my PC screen, e.g. APOD´s September 15 image (Iapetus). Moving away from the screen, taking off my regular glasses, turning the red/blue glasses 180°, etc... nothing helps.
On the other hand, I had no problems to view 3D images during a presentation where the images have been projected to the wall using a video projector.
Why don´t I succeed with 3D images on my PC screen?

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If everyone had even a basic grasp of scientific principles, this planet would be a better place (Phil Plait)

Die Lücke, die wir hinterlassen, ersetzt uns vollkommen [The gap we will leave behind will take our place entirely] (Carl Heinz Schroth)

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Your monitor doesn't display the colors of the APOD matching the colors of the glasses accurately enough? (Doesn't Germany use a different system than the US, PAL versus NTSC or something like that? Perhaps APOD and/or the glasses are incompatible with the monitor's color rendering). Just one of 100s of possible ideas.

Todd

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

If you know how to view X-eyed 3D, then you can split the image into RGB channels using an image editing program and then tile the red and blue channels on your screen and pan such that the same points are at the same relative positions on the screen. Then you could view the image X-eyed. The most likely reason for the red blue glasses not working as good as a projected image is that the projector uses same type of filters while your screen might emit lights which will pass through both red and blue filters. The glasses are usually made of cheap plastic which is not a perfect bandpass filter. Try adjusting the intensity of your monitor and let us know if it makes a difference.

Added: I have not personally used stereo maker software but have heard it does a great job at letting you view stereo images. You might consider googling that.

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"They reasoned that an object situated at the center and related equally to the extremes in every direction can have no impulse to move in any specific direction. In fact, they compared the situation of such an object with that of a man violently but equally hungry and thirsty, standing at the same distance from food and drink and unable to decide in which direction to move." - Aristotle

Four reasons:

1. NTSC ("never twice the same color") colors are horribly screwed up and highly varient from monitor to monitor. If you're really wanting to tune up your screen, I highly recommend Scotch's DVD Maintenance Kit, which cleans the lens and helps you calibrate your monitor's black/white and color levels.

2. Red/Blue (actually red and cyan, to correspond to NTSC colors) glasses produce an artificial red/blue hue that the human mind can't interpret as true color, so instead we see a weirdly distorted red/blue varient of color, each with one half our mind, that's actually worse than a true 3D black and white image.

3. PLZT goggles, which use alternating images, left and right, timed with left and right images projected onto the screen, are expensive, suitable only for such high-expense theaters as found in Walt Disney World's Epcot center. They should be fairly cheap for today's monitors, and I'm really surprised that they haven't taken off, particularly given the speed of some of today's graphics cards (60+ fps in 1280x1024 mode).

That would create rather decent true-color 30 fps 3D video.

4. Just about all 3D movies have wildly exaggerated the 3D effects, so they come off, even with the best technology, as being worse than the 2D versions, as evidenced by exit polls, etc. Hence the lack of industry willingness to enter the market.

Again, PLZT goggles are a better best than red/blue glasses.

The best bet, however, would be micro-screens which present a stereo-scopic image to each eye in the same frame timing, rather than every other frame. It's expensive, though the one thing going for it is that one need only adjust for intrapupular distance and left-right up/downness (not sure of the actual term), but both can be adjusted for electronically.

I have this problem not only with APOD images, but also 3D images from NASA, ESA, etc. And what I can see from 2D images printed in journals (e.g. Mars rover images) my screen seems to display the colours correctly. And I have the problems on both types of screens: LCD and cathode ray tube screen

__________________
If everyone had even a basic grasp of scientific principles, this planet would be a better place (Phil Plait)

Die Lücke, die wir hinterlassen, ersetzt uns vollkommen [The gap we will leave behind will take our place entirely] (Carl Heinz Schroth)

1 + e^i*pi = 0

Unfortunately, I don´t have an image editing program, and even if I had I most probably would not know how to use it

That sounds reasonable. I, indeed, use cheep plastic glasses. But the same plastic glasses work very well with video projector images.
Adjusting brightness (and contrast) doesn´t help at all.

__________________
If everyone had even a basic grasp of scientific principles, this planet would be a better place (Phil Plait)

Die Lücke, die wir hinterlassen, ersetzt uns vollkommen [The gap we will leave behind will take our place entirely] (Carl Heinz Schroth)

1 + e^i*pi = 0

Thank you very much for your detailed response which really gives some good explanations. But then, is there anyone on the BAUT forum who succeeds in viewing 3D-screen images?

__________________
If everyone had even a basic grasp of scientific principles, this planet would be a better place (Phil Plait)

Die Lücke, die wir hinterlassen, ersetzt uns vollkommen [The gap we will leave behind will take our place entirely] (Carl Heinz Schroth)

1 + e^i*pi = 0

Thank you very much for your detailed response which really gives some good explanations. But then, is there anyone on the BAUT forum who succeeds in viewing 3D-screen images?

__________________
If everyone had even a basic grasp of scientific principles, this planet would be a better place (Phil Plait)

Die Lücke, die wir hinterlassen, ersetzt uns vollkommen [The gap we will leave behind will take our place entirely] (Carl Heinz Schroth)

1 + e^i*pi = 0

Yep, I certainly can.

I've just taken a look at the APOD 3-D image of Iapetus (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070915.html) with red/cyan glasses. There's a bit of ghosting as the colours don't precisely filter out but it gives an astonishing impression of the scale of the ridge on Iapetus.

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Spike
:)

All the time. Easy-peasy.

I do have good cross-eye control. I can merge separate images at will. I have no idea what to suggest, except the sort of practice that hones any skill. I don't think there's any magic steps.

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

LOL! Reminds me of the time I told my opthamologist that I could rotate my eyeballs (about 15 degrees around my axis of vision). He said I was crazy as the eye muscles don't allow for that. I proved it to him and he called two other opthamologists in the building to verify what he was seeing. All three said it was impossible, but one fetched his video camera to document it.

It's been so long since I've been able to do it, but I think I learning it while watching bikini-clad babes during the summers I lifeguarded in college...

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

Another simpler reason may be that you don't sit 2 feet from an image projected onto a wall or screen, but you do sit very close to a monitor.

Try backing away.

On another note about 3D on TV... You can view almost any good action scene in 3d with a cheap pair of very very dark sunglasses. Just pop out the left lense.

It's called the Pulfrich effect. The light arrives at your covered eye a fraction later, and creates the depth of field effect.

Watch a football game and you'll see what I mean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulfrich_effect

for more info.

I don't normally worry about spelling, but this time I had to to find the article. (Google corrected it for me).

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

That seems to prove that my plastic glasses are of very low quality (concerning colour filtering adjustment)

__________________
If everyone had even a basic grasp of scientific principles, this planet would be a better place (Phil Plait)

Die Lücke, die wir hinterlassen, ersetzt uns vollkommen [The gap we will leave behind will take our place entirely] (Carl Heinz Schroth)

1 + e^i*pi = 0

Cross-eye control! Unbelievable! It works, after some exercises. Iapetus is simply breathtaking.
Thank you, 01101001

__________________
If everyone had even a basic grasp of scientific principles, this planet would be a better place (Phil Plait)

Die Lücke, die wir hinterlassen, ersetzt uns vollkommen [The gap we will leave behind will take our place entirely] (Carl Heinz Schroth)

1 + e^i*pi = 0

Can´t agree with you. I´ve watched bikini-clad babes for at least sixty years. Wasn´t of any help for my problem. But now I know why: I didn´t look cross-eyed (see my earlier post) at them (seeing only monokini-clad ladies?)

__________________
If everyone had even a basic grasp of scientific principles, this planet would be a better place (Phil Plait)

Die Lücke, die wir hinterlassen, ersetzt uns vollkommen [The gap we will leave behind will take our place entirely] (Carl Heinz Schroth)

1 + e^i*pi = 0

I have made a little resource on making and viewing 3D pictures by several different methods and it has links to further material including equipment.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/raysrav...7600158105229/

Thank you for this. I don´t know if it is of interest for you (or other people), but I have some strange expereinces with your pictures:
1. Door in 3D: No success at all, neither with red/blue glasses, nor with cross-eyed viewing
2. Smoke tree in Flame: minor success with cross-eyed viewing. Very narrow central picture
3. Test photo (= yellow house + green trees): That´s the most amazing situation from my point of view:
The upper two pictures form a moderate good 3D-impression when looked at cross-eyed. BUT: The lower two pictures combine into a PERFECT(!) 3D-impression.
And that´s not just a one-trial-result. I can reproduce it any time I want. WHY ????

__________________
If everyone had even a basic grasp of scientific principles, this planet would be a better place (Phil Plait)

Die Lücke, die wir hinterlassen, ersetzt uns vollkommen [The gap we will leave behind will take our place entirely] (Carl Heinz Schroth)

1 + e^i*pi = 0