rendering to displays that are not spanned by Windows desktop
 

Hi All,

We're just installed Vizard in our new VR lab. The setup we have comprises a passive stereo wall and an ISense-tracked HMD. That gives us 4 displays overall: wall left eye (#1); wall right eye(#2); HMD left eye (#3) and HMD right eye (#4).

We have Windows desktop on the display that is projected onto wall left eye only, and all other displays are detected, but not used by Windows - and that's the way I'd prefer to keep it.

Is there a way to use the other displays in Vizard, showing a static stereo view on the wall and dynamically adjusted (from head-tracker) stereo view on the HMD?

I have a vague feeling that a proper use of viz.window, viz.setOption("viz.window.fullscreen") and viz.addView() will do what I want, but I have no idea how to do it right.

Please help -
Mark

Can you say a little more about your hardware setup, are you using two video cards here?

yes, two identical nVidia video cards. one outputs to the screen (2 outputs) and one to the HMD (2 outputs).

BTW, I've managed to run it when all the screens are made into a single horizontal span in nVidia Control Panel - using fullscreen, addWindow, and then window.setSize and setPosition.

Still, for compatibility with other software we use on this machine, I'd rather not span the desktop across all the screens.

How about this: On the first video card, display 1 is your windows desktop. The second port on the first card is your HMD. On the second card, span the two outputs into a single window, and use that for your passive setup.

I have something like that setup for a classroom. A Dell PC with two NVidia cards. The first card runs the main classroom projector and a side projector. The second card is setup for passive stereo viewing. We've arranged the windows so that the main display (1) is in the center. Display 2 is the spanned display from the second card, and it's on the left. Display 3, which is the second port of the first card, is on the right.

When the instructor wants to move something to the side projector, they just drag it to the right. If they want to show something on the passive stereo screen, they drag it to the left.

One thing you'll want to make sure you have set is the multidisplay performance mode. Otherwise the first display on a card gets pretty much all of the processing.

I guess now that I think about it, this probably doesn't really solve your not wanting to span the desktop. While they are seperate windows, in a way it is still a single desktop.

Aaron