| Author | Message | ||
     SamualT Rating: N/A |
If you go to the Winx3D site they just got a message about being sold to another company and that is about it. Everything else is gone. I wonder what this will do to VRCaddy? | ||
| David Sykes Rating: N/A |
Whatever the reason, it is probably not in the interest of amateur stereoscopy. Does someone want to kill-off freeware page-flipping software ? Can the new owners stop a website offering free copies of previously downloaded Winx3D ? Well David Q , are you allowed to comment or have the new owners imposed a gagging order ? | ||
| David C. Qualman Rating: N/A |
I am unable to discuss the terms of the purchase, and I am not in tune with their near or long-term plans. I have no knowledge if they will keep the SDK available for developers - I hope so. If you have a specific product, I can forward your requests. Yes, they can stop the owner of a website from offering free copies of previously downloaded WINx3D - source code, drivers, documentation, etc. When the product was mine, I owned full rights to how it was reproduced. These rights are now owned by another party. If you reproduce WINx3D, and have not received a signed license agreement from me or the new company, you will be knowingly breaking the law. Keep in mind, just because I made it free to developers - in the hopes that they would create commercial apps - it was not free to me or the new owners, and it was never free to reproduce without the signed agreement. | ||
| Christoph Bungert (Admin) Rating: N/A |
Hello David. First of all congratulations to your business transaction. I'm certain you can now work under healthier financial conditions. Technically it is catastopical to the stereo community if the driver is no longer available. I have no problem if there is a charge on the driver, but it should be available for quick download access at a reasonable price. Why is the name of the company which aquired WINx3D not revealed? Thank you Christoph | ||
| Christoph Bungert (Admin) Rating: N/A |
### I wonder what this will do to VRCaddy? VRCaddy works without WINx3D in line-blanker mode. Christoph | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
ok, I don't get it. What does win3d do? Why is this catostrophic for anyone. The only thing I have EVER heard using win3d is vrcaddy. No one uses vrcaddy anyway... Christoph, why is this catostrophic for us? | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Winx3D was giving page flippin on ATI graphic cards. It was the main strenght of this API in addtion to giving potential united platorm for stereo-development. On nVida the SDK for acces to D3D HW page flipping is availabe for developers - so it is not so catastrofic. The rest of Winx3D function could be made in software directly ... So it will be primary problem fro ATI cards users and unified stereo-support implementation concept ... | ||
| Christoph Bungert (Admin) Rating: N/A |
You are talking about games and 3D-accelerators by nVidia and ATI, but WINx3D is mainly about all the other stereo content. WINx3D is THE stereo application driver for applications, animations, images and videos on any VGA-board with any 3D-shutterglasses. For example if you want to view stereo-photos in full-resolution (i.e. page-flipping) on any non-nVidia consumer VGA-board you need WINx3D, no matter which glasses you have. Christoph | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
I never got WINx3D to work with Radeon 9700 Pro. It kept showing the left eye image only. No page flipping at all. | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
I wonder why the big video chip companies like ATI are not releasing reference stereo drivers like nVidia ? If they don't do it in the near future, I think they'll go down. | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
It's not like there's a big market for it yet, although I think that may slowly be changing as the equipment gets cheap enough, good enough, and simple enough for Joe Average to buy and use. It's good that a mainstream company like nVidia has taken the role of a trail blazer here, although I suspect it's more to help their image as a cutting edge company than to generate any revenue. Once there is money in it, the others are sure to follow. | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
My guess is that someone wants to protect an inferior, expensive product from any competition. Their only use for Win3D may be simply to withold it from the stereo community. Let us see if anyone owns-up to the acquisition or whether it is kept secret. Keep a lookout for increased advertising of some commercial stereo product. | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Of course, the Winx3D drivers have not really gone away. They are out there in Cyberspace, maybe in the future a Google search will track them down to some remote ISP. | ||
| Christoph Bungert (Admin) Rating: N/A |
In the future the current code will be outdated. Driver software needs constant maintenance. Maybe VRStandard is behind this and will merge WINx3D and VRCaddy, but I also fear it's someone more sinister. C. | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Maybe it'll be someone who updates them more frequently I've been waiting 2 years for them to add support for Matrox G450, after requesting support. I gave up bought a geforce4 only to find latest Winx3d couldn't recognise the chipset so hopefully the new owners will take updating the drivers more seriously. but if charging a demo with a trial or time lock to test if it works before buying it is mandatory. | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Christoph: I was not speaking about game market. The only one futer of Winx3D witch can not be implemented by standard level coding specialist is HW page flipping on ATI cards. All "HW independent" modes could be added by standard D3D or OGL functions .... Even VRCaddy is doing the interlaced itself using Winx3D for HW page flipping only. It will be only a bit more work to implement the modes in each software individualy ... And it will kill the idea "to have a united stereo output support" | ||
| Virgil Rating: N/A |
Pardon me. I am new to the stero community. Does this mean I would still be safe in buying a GeForce 5200, say, run nVida drivers and be able to use page flipping? | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Virgil: Yes an no. The nVida did not relesed oficial stereo support for his lates Detonator version, but maybe they will do this. Winx3D will not help you anyway in this direction ... | ||
| Christoph Bungert (Admin) Rating: N/A |
###The only one futer of Winx3D witch can not be implemented by standard level coding specialist is HW page flipping on ATI cards.### ###It will be only a bit more work to implement the modes in each software individualy ...### If you believe there is a "standard level coding specialist" who will do stereo functions for you for every VGA-board, every kind of glasses-controller and every stereo-application individually you also believe Superman will rescue you if you jump off the 14th floor. The main feature of WINx3D is to trigger all kinds of glasses: DCC-trigger, serial-port-trigger, parallel-port-trigger, StereoGraphics white-line and blue-line code, etc. Another feature is the ability to put many VGA-boards into real interlace-scan mode and some even into progressive-scan-page-flipping. ###Even VRCaddy is doing the interlaced itself### No, VRCaddy isn't able to put any VGA-board into interlace mode. It produces a standard progressive-scan alternate-line stereo image which requires a line-blanker-controller or some 3rd party driver like WINx3D to see it in stereo. ###The nVida did not relesed oficial stereo support for his lates Detonator version### Yes, but the inofficial software works. Actually it's the best stereo-game-driver ever. Nevertheless I fear nVidia will finally abandon the stereo-feature sooner or later. If we loose WINx3D and nVidia-stereo we end up almost at the same point as back in 1995 - at ZERO. Christoph | ||
| tj Rating: N/A |
NVIDIA would be stupid to drop stereo. They're in 2nd place right now and have been for many months. Even the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra at 256 MB (and still unreleased) generally underperforms the Radeon 9800 Pro at 128 MB (and it's been released for a while), yet the 5900 is $200US more. However, I will keep buying NVIDIA and keep spending $300-400 every year for their latest cards, all because of stereo. If it wasn't for that, I'd switch to ATI in a heartbeat. "Brand loyalty" doesn't mean much to me or probably too few other people these days. If NVIDIA doesn't keep up one of the few things that sets them apart, and getting their butts in gear to keep their chips competitive wouldn't hurt either, they'll be lucky not to go the way of 3DFX. As for WINx3D, I loved it and used it in my hobby and research programming of HMDs. I'm sad to see it go, and it's a sad day for developers who will no longer have the SDK as a resource to help them innovate. WINx3D was a great product for developers because all you had to do was create left and right stereo images/streams and it would do the rest. You wouldn't have to worry about what graphics chip your code was running on, because Mr. Qualman coded the individual driver support for practically every major chipset. This was a bigger issue back when there were a lot more graphics chip/card vendors -- before the market consolidated down to the two biggies, NVIDIA & ATI... although there's still a lot of that older, diverse graphics hardware out there and in use today. So if you wanted to write your software quickly and for a broad base of hardware (i.e., the largest possible market), David Q's software was great. WINx3D also took care of managing the output format to your display, so you could tell it what kind of glasses/HMD you had and it would output the proper format. This made things much easier too. Thanks, while it lasted, David Q! However, I do hope this isn't the end! (P.S. - So I wouldn't be able to get the latest, last available WINx3D SDK anywhere? Gee, if only I'd been psychic, then I could've downloaded it the day before it went offline. :-( ) | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
> So I wouldn't be able to get the latest, last available WINx3D SDK anywhere? If your email address had been valid, Yes :-) But it is not. | ||
| David C. Qualman Rating: N/A |
To all of you who are wanting to support WINx3D on an underground effort - please don't distribute it on your own. If you have v4.17, it was the latest official release. First, if you need the SDK, please let me know, and I'll forward your request - this keeps it legit. Second, the incessant need by members in the stereo community to usurp the law has seriously impacted our ability to gain interest by the video card developers. I know of a specific set of events where confidential source code from a video card company was posted on the web by stereo enthusiasts - hoping to do good. But, the video card company was so appalled, that they stopped their stereo support. I am certain that if the stereo community had fewer, let's say "nonprofessional", members, we would have had companies other than nVidia provide stereo support in 1999 or 2000. As it is, we have members that blatently state, right here in the most-viewed stereo site, that they would forward protected software at the drop of the hat. Overall, it makes us look like fools that should not be taken seriously. Third, I worked very, very hard on WINx3D, and still don't like to see its value diminished by ass-holes that think that they can give it away for free, as though they are self-appointed protectors of my work. PS. Thanks for the appreciative comments Tadd. | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Christoph: I agree that the streng of Winx3D was in addtion in interlaced activation and activcaation of serial/parelal e.t.c glasses interfaces. In the "Can be implemented by average level specialist" sequence I was spekaing about all HW indpenedent modes - interlaced, over under, anaglyph e.t.c ... To create such image by DirectDraw commands is not so diffcult ... And VrCaddy intenaly realy does not use Winx3D for interlaced pattern creation ... Interlaced graphic card mode activation is another topic ... I wanted to say: It is sad that Winx3D is not availabele, but it is not so catastrophic. | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
David, "confidential source code from a video card company was posted on the web by stereo enthusiasts" I'm quite new to the stereo 3d community but the above statement doesn't quite ring true. Where did these stereo enthusiasts get the source code in the first place, if not from someone inside the company? Blaming the customers for the failure of a company's internal procedures is simply ludicrous. If a company is giving out source code to selected customers it has to recognize that a leak is possible (or even probable), accept it as a calculated risk, and have the appropriate legal procedures in place to pursue any NDA breaches. This is not to say that distributing other people's IPR is right, quite the opposite. I'm just saying that any company who bases their future on the goodheartedness of other people won't last very long. From what little I've seen people are simply desperate for something that works and even honorable desperate people sometimes do desperate deeds. That said, I would very much like to see a concerted open source effort to provide something useful for those of us who, for whatever reason, don't have or want an nVidia card. Waiting for the big ones (or some small garage shop somewhere) to do it doesn't seem to be working very well. | ||
| nickyj Rating: N/A |
I guess that means everyone using nVidia stereo drivers more recent than the 30.87 posted a year ago in violation of the law. That probably means every person on this board and every single person using 3D glasses with a nVidia card. That's a pretty lame excuse for a company deciding not to make stereo drivers. If they actually went ahead and legitimately produced them, there would no longer be anything illegal to distribute. | ||
| David C. Qualman Rating: N/A |
The event to which I referred was one of many examples of problems created by members of the stereo community. In particular, a company had been provided source code, under a confidentiality agreement, from a video card manufacturer. This code was released, in violation of the confidentiality agreement. As a result, the video card manufacturer withdrew their interest in providing stereo support, and we never did see native stereo support offered on this, at the time most popular, video card. The "legal procedures" that they did take was to reject our community. The argument that "a leak is possible" is exactly the wrong message our community continues to send. If we use the argument that "its your fault you were injured because you knew we couldn't be trusted", then we will continue to be without the backing by video card manufacturers that we so strongly seek. The two previous posts - by nickyi and Anonymous - show a strong reason about how difficult it is for a video card company to make a successful business model in stereo. We want their service - they want to make money. If they see that they can't make money off of us - using their business models and not the business models that we think they should have - we don't get their service. My point is that we need to quit posting on this, or other sites, that we will "wink, wink, send you an archive copy of someone else's product". Anonymous, you have it backwards. No video card company since Metabyte based their success on the stereo community. Rather, we base our success on them. Overall, they don't give a rat's ass about us. | ||
| Christoph Bungert (Admin) Rating: N/A |
David, this story is hard to believe. I doubt they stopped just for this reason. Leaking of code happens everywhere and anytime. I don't think a hardware company would stop development because of this, especially if it's just about a driver. The driver isn't the thing they make money with, it's the hardware. The only question for a VGA-board/chipset-manufacturer in terms of doing support for stereo or whatever is: will it sell more boards? And here's the problem, because it seems the additional sales are insignificant. Christoph | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
David, I didn't realize that by "the stereo community" you meant "companies producing stereoscopic products and software". I agree that anyone breaking their NDA deserves to get their pants sued off and hung out to dry. The example you quote is an unfortunate one. Goes to show that there are scumbags in every business. I guess that in the case of stereoscopic products, the companies are more driven by techies than real business professionals, which probably isn't helping to build a credible image. I figured this to be more of an end user / hobbyist forum, though. I seriously doubt that any of the video card manufacturers base their business decisions on anything that is posted here. | ||
| M.H. Rating: N/A |
Christop - you say "what makes the money is the HW not software" ... I thing this is not fully corect - e.g. the Quadro graphic card nVida politic is pure "selling the software" strategy. Funny thougs could re related to how much SoftQuadro had manipulated with the market ... I woluld rely like to know what is the proportion between software/hw graphic card development investment ... | ||
| David C. Qualman Rating: N/A |
Christoph, The company I refer to had intended to license the driver for bundling with third party hardware - the software was their asset to add value to other's hardware. And, you are very right that stereo adds little to the sales of hardware for any video card vendor. But, by licensing the stereo drivers to hardware manufacturers, an additional revenue stream is created. This is, from what I can tell, nVidia's consumer business model, and the driving force for gaming stereo driver development at the moment. Just about every video chip or glasses manufacturer that I am familiar with pays attention to this site. | ||
| SamualT Rating: N/A |
It's all a crock! The big companies just want returns for their shareholders, God forbid they should do something innovative! NVidia throws a bone to it's user-base once in a while in the form of stereo support to keep the stragglers in line, but they don't care either. ATI could really gives a rats A$$. And Micro$oft is much too busy worrying about corporate image to care about anything at all. As far as Winx3D, it's history! Whoever bought it thinks they are going to make money with it, possibly even by sitting on it, or incorporating it into their own software. They didn't buy it to be nice. So just write it off completely! As far as I'm concerned it has become a non-issue. It is nothing more than a bad memory of a little program that left some freeware/shareware software writers in the lurch. That's what happens when you rely on comercial products rather than Open Source, which can also die a slow death from neglect and abandonment, but it's not as likely if it's useful. And revival is always a possibility with open source. This is exactly why Open Source is becoming more popular. C'est La Vie! As to the very small vacuum that has been created by Winx3D's rather discourteous exit (No warning, just an exchange of money! Barf!) perhaps this is just the impetus needed to start an Open Source project or two. I would gladly donate some of my time to such an endeavor. It would take a better programmer than me to head up such a project, but I have some programming experience and I make a good gofer! I think I hear the sirens of http://sourceforge.net/ calling already! Perhaps I'll scout around for a simular Open Source project. David C. Qualman exclaimed: "Just about every video chip or glasses manufacturer that I am familiar with pays attention to this site." Although this is truely one of my favorite websites and forums, I doubt the traffic here warrants interest by companies of any size. I think we have enough problems just trying to get stereo 3d enthusiast to visit. They are not, as yet, a very coherent group. I think your statement is a little naive. I think Christoph is right. There just isn't enough money in VR for the bourgeois elitist capitalist pigs of industry to be even remotely interested in VR. But, these things cycle. During the next VR craze they will all be claiming what great things they have accomplished and can sell you, most of it probably stolen from some Open Source project somewhere. It's the way of the world. I guess my point is that it's up to us to do something with it. We can't wait for them! VR is dead! Long live VR! P.S. The above is what your brain looks like on three big old mugs of expresso! (A very strong type of coffee drank usually from small, dainty, demitasse cups ;-) | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Maybe you could consider adding stereo support for Dscaler Open source TV tuners most excellent software a number of requests for stereo support have been made in there in Feature request section, including field sequential, and over and under video input plus 2d to 3d conversion, for viewing interlaced, page flipped, or yellow/blue and red/cyan anaglyph etc. You could probably improve on the technique used by X3D TV Gateway. That way movies can be stored on DVD or SVCD field sequential or over and under and played through TV tuner video input and displayed on computer without need for conversions. I'm not a programmer but please consider. Dscaler found at http://www.dscaler.com/ it's the best TV card viewing software in the world and open source. | ||
| tj Rating: N/A |
SamualT (& others) : "Open source" isn't the answer to everything. Too many people think that it is these days and have jumped on the bandwagon. THAT I think is naive. Recently I worked a contract to write a Linux driver for a "big-name" hardware manufacturer. Yes, they make their money selling the hardware and they were willing to pay for it to have Linux support (most of which they unfortunately kept proprietary, as "trade secrets" from their competitors). They paid for my new PC, but I was expected to obtain/download my OS and all my development tools for free, which I did. I made extensive use of a number of open source development tools, some excellent, some that needed work, but ALL at the expense of someone else having developed them, to my PURE benefit... and shaving untold time/cost. So I wrote the driver and its GUI, the big-name company got its Linux support (whether this has led to increased sales of their product, who knows... perhaps), and the company that pimped me out for the contract made a boatload of money (of which I received considerably less). What's sad is that all those dev tool writers - whose coattails I totally rode on - they got absolutely nothing... while others banked $$$. I hate telling this story. Maybe I should be ashamed. But it underscores what I feel are some major problems with the free software or open source movement. GPL & similar licenses should allow for money to be sent to developers, especially if money is ultimately being made off their work. Money, in itself, is not the "enemy" here. Let's face it, everyone has to work to eat, let alone support a family, etc. Yet if someone writes some great code, why can't they get paid for that? Why are they expected to spend their day building widgets on an assembly line for pay, then to code all night for free? Isn't the world better served if those people can get paid for what they're best at, and doing it for the better hours of their days... instead of being forced into giving it a half-hearted effort? What worries me is that everyone will eventually expect to get everything for free. Then the whole system will break down (or maybe that's what's happening already?). Then nobody will make any money in software, or a living at it. Then the only jobs that pay will be widgets on assembly lines, and the advancement of software (as if it's not bad enough already) will slow to a crawl. So will innovation. Money drives innovation. (Okay, now to finally get to my point...) I thought David Qualman had a good thing going in WINx3D: Great product, great licensing idea. Product: As I already mentioned, it made the stereo 3D task easy. More importantly, it kept me from having to REINVENT THE WHEEL. David already had a pretty damn good wheel too, given his prior expertise in stereo 3D from working at companies like StereoGraphics (I hope he doesn't mind me saying that, and I hope I have that right - I haven't even spoken to him in several years, and actually we hardly even know each other beyond some professional contact). Could I have spent months or years trying to research/code/reinvent his "wheel"? Sure. ...but who the hell has time to do that? I have plenty else I'd rather code, and will never have enough time to code it all. Plus, you probably couldn't have asked for a better licensing deal... Licensing: I never sold any of my software that used WINx3D, but if I had, I considered the licensing to be quite reasonable, especially given the expanded market I'd be able to sell to. But here's the best part: if you made your product available for free, you could distribute WINx3D with it for free too. So basically, if you're making money off Qualman's product (with the help of it, I mean), he deserves a little cut too. What's so wrong with that? Then if he can scrape together a living from it, he can spend his time working to make his product better, which makes your product better. He's happier, you're happier, the world is a better place. Not to mention that his expertise and IP should have some market value... value that reasonable people are willing to pay something for. So when you say "It is nothing more than a bad memory of a little program that left some freeware/shareware software writers in the lurch." I think you've missed the whole point. What suffers is innovation, and that developers have one less resource and one bigger hill to climb as they reinvent the wheel. I'm in no lurch. I'll continue to depend on NVIDIA for their stereo support and the rather lame stereo support that's built into DirectX (if you've ever tried to use it, you know what I mean - Microsoft has done a piss-poor job implementing things like page flipping... which WINx3D did better). If a market ever develops for my software, I guess I'll worry about market coverage then. Gee, as I use the word "innovation" so much, it makes me (*cough*) think of Microsoft. They talk so much about innovation, yet they have done so much to stiffle it. On the same note, SamualT, I don't mean to discourage your push for an open source effort in the name of stereo 3D support. I'd be willing to contribute something to it. The challenge would be getting it going, then finding the people with the expertise and drive (and evening hours) to do it all for free. Anyway, I'm glad that David Q is finally getting something for his effort. Again, I'm just sorry to see his work go away for the rest of us. -Tadd (yeah it's me, although I've gone by "tj" for the last coupla years... and gee, I actually left an e.mail address this time... spam be damned!) | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Tadd, I'm truly appalled. If by now you don't know how to pay back the Open Source community, I'm not sure if you will ever get a clue. Contribute something yourself! If some of the tools you used were less than perfect, improve them! Send a patch! If some of these tools are helping you make a living that's the least you can do. It doesn't mean that you have to give up your high paying job or open source everything you do and you don't become a commie by doing so. Consider it a hobby. The joy of giving isn't restricted to Christmas, you know. Anyway, that's what I do. -M (Send a freaking postcard if that's all you have time for) | ||
| David C. Qualman Rating: N/A |
Actually, Tadd, I worked at NuVision, not StereoGraphics. But, that is irrelevant to your message. My whole message is: 1) We need to quit posting on this forum that we will send bootleg copies of stuff to each other. 2) This forum IS read by decision makers in the industry. Maybe only one or two people in a company, but they are often the decision makers who, I know, can be influenced by the legitimate, and illegitimate, actions of our community. 3) I will continue helping people to develop stereoscopic applications, as much as I can. BTW: I would like to believe that open source will be the panacea to all stereoscopic ills. But, maybe because my Force is from the the dark side because of my MBA, I think that open source is self-limiting. To really "succeed", however you measure it, an innovative technology needs funding - not just ambition. (I think, as tj mentioned, that the demand for free stereo stuff puts a severe damper on stereo product developers. Business models CAN be developed to provide for "free", but they are usually really expensive to implement and to make succeed. However, I think that the only model to succeed in the long run provides apparently free stereoscopic solutions to the consumer.) Are you willing to hang the bell on that cat, SamualT? As an aside, because I have seen it mentioned, one cannot reliably page-flip using the DirectX Flip() or Present() commands. It may look enticing, but overall will fail. User-level drivers will not cut it, and in fact, the specification for Flip() says that at least one frame period will occur between Flip()s - maybe more. Kernel-level drivers are a necessity. | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
I guess what I wanted to say is that money is just grease. Money is needed to make things tick but to be part of the clockwork you need to become a wheel. Leave the grease supply to the individuals who cannot become wheels but nevertheless like to see things tick. -M | ||
| SamualT Rating: N/A |
tj mumbled: "I thought David Qualman had a good thing going in WINx3D..." Yes he did. Winx3D was a fine product! One of the best I have seen! But once Qualman "Sold Out" it became a NIGHTMARE didn't it? There are many dozens of programs that will now not work because they depended on Winx3D. It's really sad. I go to their little web pages and see this beautiful program they spent hundreds of hours developing, for free, and now it won't work because Winx3D is no longer available. I'm not saying Open Source is the answer to everything. I have written, and am now trying to sell, commercial software myself. I'm just saying that we Stereo 3D Enthusiasts shouldn't depend on one commercial product so much. The Winx3D licensing really set everyone up for a fall. It should have said they could distribute Winx3D with their product. At least that way there wouldn't be so many crippled/dead programs out there now. I actually thought about programming with it, but I realized I couldn't distribute Winx3D with my program and so decided against it. I'm glad I did. My tone would be a little harsher if I had spent 100 hours on it...I can clue ya! As to bootlegging, there probably arn't three people in the world who want your program that bad. It was a very nice little program, but I hardly think bootlegging is a problem in such a small niche market. There are probably only about 6 users here who post frequently. It just doesn't sound like every 14 year old and his dog is trying to pass a copy of your program over Kazaa! LOL. Don't worry about it! Just my two cents, and worth every penny you paid. | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
One of the problems I see here is this: people are so busy cutting the (almost non-existent) pie that they fail to think of ways to make the pie bigger. Let's face it, there is a huge untapped market potential that is never going to be realized until the stereoscopic community (as David puts it) gets their act together. The target should be that everyone buys a pair of shutter glasses (or whatever) for their PC. A few facts of life: 1) Nobody pays for drivers. Nobody. People expect drivers to come with the hardware. 2) Nobody buys hardware if there are no applications. Games, people, games. Lots of them, inluding the hottest new FPS games. Let's face it, a quaint 3d image viewer or two aren't going to cut it. 3) Nobody writes games for obscure APIs. There has to be a standard API that is supported by a variety of hardware manufacturers. There has to be a sufficiently large number of potentual customers. The above is not happening. It's not happening, because true success requires co-operation between a number of parties. Now is not the time to play "king of the hill", when the hill is little more than a dung heap in somebody's back yard. All of the above takes a lot of market making and, David is right, it's not cheap. But the point is, it makes no sense for a small player to go at it alone. You need video card manufactures, you need software houses, you need stereoscopic hardware manufacturers, you need consumer electronics manufacturers. And yes, you probably need Microsoft with their DirectX umpteenth. Look at the VREX consortium in Japan. They have the right idea and it takes something like that to succeed. A consortium that specifies and controls(!) the APIs, implements and distributes references drivers (Open Source!), and provides a legitimate framework for all things stereoscopic. Look at what the Open Source Consortium did for Linux in terms of legitimacy. I'm certainly also not claiming that Open Source is the panacea to all ails, but it does have its place and I'm convinced it could help here. Open Source (and free software) is about sharing the development cost among developers. In the business world, naturally only where it makes sense. Companies can still differentiate themselves by making kickass hardware and writing drivers that are better optimized for their product than the reference ones. However, there simply has to be a common framework in order to foster the market. So there. -M | ||
| tj Rating: N/A |
M: Many good points. Yet I only partially agree that money is just "grease"... not when it's an absolute necessity to make a living and to eat! If I want to be a wheel (which isn't easy), I'm personally finding that my turns grind to a quick halt without that grease coming from somewhere. (...and look at how corporations view money - like it's the #1 most important thing in the world!) About my being able to contribute to the open source community by giving back to it, you're absolutely right: I should. Unfortunately, I'm too busy struggling to make ends meet by writing software. Sorry to sound like a whiner! Yet too many of my evening/weekend hours are taken in the name of my so-called "salary" already. Maybe if I DID assemble widgets for an hourly wage, I would be able to go home after a mere eight hours, not take any of that work/stress with me, and maybe have some remaining mental energy to contribute to an open source project. Maybe I'd be happier. Alas, I'm stuck being a coding pawn. I work for "the man" and do what I'm told (more or less). That means the man makes a lot more money off my work than I do. Maybe I'm just pissed that the man doesn't even have to think of such ethical issues (as long as his profits are up and padding his pocket)... issues like giving back to the community he's leeching off of. He hasn't a care or the guilty conscience I seem to be plagued with. I think that open source/free software/GPL/etc. are great ideas, but perhaps too unrealistically utopian. Why isn't it more common for an open source license to include a clause like: "if you make money by using this product, you must share some of that money with those of us who developed it" (with better legalese, of course)? I don't think that's asking for too much, just what's FAIR. More importatnly, then it becomes a legal issue, which might force "the man" into being concerned! Okay, so I should shut up and instead donate my time to an open source project... but doesn't TIME == MONEY (more or less)? What if I find I'm simply unable to contribute my TIME back to the community? Since time is the commodity I have less of than money, I'd rather send those people money!!! Funny how we treat our time like it's not worth much and our money like it's worth so much more ...but when you think about it, our time is really the more precious of the two. (sorry, I'll lay off the bullshit now) SamualT: Points well made, and taken. All I can do is go back to saying that it's too bad the guy who wrote WINx3D couldn't have made a better living at it. Maybe then he wouldn't have had to "sell out." Oh well. All we can do is move on. (P.S. -- David: Sorry I got your background wrong. I knew you had worked for one of the big, original stereo 3D companies...) (P.P.S. -- M: Interesting about the VREX Consortium. Does that have anything to do with VRex, Inc. (http://www.vrex.com) or did they just steal the name?) | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Tadd, Sorry to hear about your daily grind. The long hours are all too common in this business. I hope you get a breather one of these days. If you're serious about donating money, though, there are plenty of open source projects out there that accept donations. Many of them don't ask. It's best to check with the authors, though, as some of them actually find the idea of accepting donations distasteful. Regarding VRex, I had a brain fart with the name. I think I saw them in a common context somewhere, but the consortium is just called "3D consortium". Here's a press release from sharp: http://sharp-world.com/corporate/news/030304.html Unfortunately, they either don't have a web site yet, or it's in Japanese and I just couldn't track it down. -M | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Why are the company who bought-off Qualman so shy about revealing their identity if their motives are honorable ? Why don't they just offer the driver at a reasonable price, it would solve a lot of problems for a lot of people ? I think they were 'spooked' by the nice, little freeware programs that have recently become available and which they see as a threat for their probably overpriced and inferior product. Any guesses for who the company is ? | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Most probably it's some small CAD company that specializes in OpenGL software for designing indoor plumbing. :-) Since David won't tell, all we can do is speculate. My guess would be that it's one of the other HMD manufactures who are beginning to recognize that they had better start providing software drivers. Or maybe eDimensional has taken steps to close that avenue and is looking to enhance their driver offering with an SDK. -M | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
This Anon not-so-confidently suggests it was Microsoft. The purchase would have been cheeeap compared to their usual targets. Also would've been a wise technology grab for them since their stereo 3D support in DirectX S U C K S ! | ||
| M.H. Rating: N/A |
According stereo support as Open Source - I thing that there is no chance it will work. It is nessery to have acces to proprietary graphic card futures, optimaly to drivers source codes ... And witch company will give you acces to this ? And I do not speek abot the requirement for total code rewritting with new HW camming ... | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
M.H., as a hobbyist project you mean? It sure would be difficult, although maybe not totally hopeless. Some graphics card manufacturers do give out hardware programming specs and even source code. For a hobby project I would probably go for Linux/XFree86, though, where there is at least an existing code base. It would be an interesting project to add stereoscopic support to WineX, for one thing. It already runs a fair number of DirectX8 games. -M | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
How about Lightspeed Design, SIS or NuVision ? | ||
| M.H. Rating: N/A |
WIN3D aquired by X3D company I can make the information public now. Winx3D and VrStandards technlogyes was aquired by X3D company ... See press release: http://www.x3dworld.com/about/news/standardpr/4d.html | ||
| M.H. Rating: N/A |
X3D acqured in addtion to WIN3D 4D-Vision GMbH ! They are realy serious about stereoscopy ... They had aqured almost all companies witch with i had cooperated :-) . Who will be the next ? There is only a pitty that they are tryng to sell the crappy 2D-3D video conversion things ... I only hope they will put on the market some serious product now ... | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
Their 'PC Viewing' product uses the NVidia stereo driver, so why do they want Winx3D ? To employ David Qualman to develop the ATI driver that they mention is 'under development' ? In the 'PC Viewer' menu is the item 'Stereo-On/Resync'. 'Resync' sounds ominous, does it imply that the system can lose synchronisation ? | ||
| Rant-O-Matic Rating: N/A |
X3D Company: 1. They seemingly have the same glasses as Edimensional but are higher in price. 2. They have no current Non-Nvidia drivers like Edimensional. Doesn't matter if they are planning on it. It's Vaporware till I see it. 3. Their web site is confusing. There is just something about the layout of their website I really hate. 4. Jesus Christ, is everyone out there selling this crappy 2d-3d conversion crap. WE HAVE TO STOP THIS NOW! I don't know how, but it has to be done! Still, they might be worth watching ;-) | ||
| Vladimir Simchenko Rating: N/A |
Sounds like an appeal to sacred war. Is the Rant-O-Matic - nikname of ZARATUSTRA ??? | ||
| Reticuli Rating: N/A |
Qualman, you are a human turd. | ||
| Charles Rating: N/A |
Reticuli: Do you really believe that your message added anything useful to this discussion? |
