How to enable Stereo Page-Flipping for Shutter glasses in my browser?

Last update: Friday September 27 2002
All described configuration steps were tested with Windows only!

Hardware configuration

You need a graphics board which can do page-flipping in OpenGL mode. Most graphics boards for gaming do not provide a suitable OpenGL driver which can do page-flipping in the windowed mode.

Using a professional CAD graphics board

If you have a professional graphics board like NVidia Quadro, Wildcat or FireGL, where you can enable the page-flipping mode in the driver's setup (instructions for the Nvidia driver) you can continue directly with the Software Configuration. Normally the page-flipping mode can only be enabled when using Windows NT, 2000 or XP.

Using a Geforce based gaming board and Windows NT, 2000 or XP for page-flipping

If you are using Windows NT, 2000 or XP in combination with a Geforce1, Geforce2 or Geforce3 graphics board I would recommend to use RivaTuner to enable OpenGL page-flipping with your system. First of all you should check if you have installed a driver from NVidia. Also you should check the version of the driver: Versions newer than 30.00 are not working with the current version of RivaTuner! I would recommend version 28.32 instead. The Stereo-driver from NVidia is not necessary! If you have an NVidia driver, you should download RivaTuner from NvWorld.ru which can transform your Geforce board to a professional Quadro board. After the installation of RivaTuner the following steps have to be done:
  1. Start RivaTuner with Administrator privileges
  2. Go to the Main page
  3. Click on Target adapter -> Customize... -> Customize low level settings
  4. Go to the NVStrap driver page
  5. Click on Install and select Professional Quadro capabilities -> force on
  6. Exit RivaTuner and reboot your system
After the reboot you should configure the Nvidia driver for stereo.

After that you should continue with the Software Configuration.

Using another gaming board (Geforce4, Radeon) or Windows 95, 98 or ME for page-flipping

If all the above possibilities are not working because you are using Windows 95, 98 or ME or because you are using another graphics board (e.g. Geforce4, Radeon) you could try to use GLDirect from SciTech Software. You should install GLDirect 3.0 (gldirect-3.0.0.exe). Please use version 3.0.0. Other versions might not work correctly.

Setup of GLDirect for Stereoscope Applet:

  1. Double-click the SciTech GLDirect icon
  2. From the Main page choose Use SciTech GLDirect CAD Driver
  3. From the Stereo page choose Application-controlled stereo
  4. Choose the appropriate entry from Stereo Device.
  5. Choose Page-Flipping (less memory) from Windowed Configuration
  6. Close the GLDirect setup

Continue with the Software Configuration.

If the image is distorted or black, something with the configuration of GLDirect might be wrong. Open the GLDirect settings and go to the Stereo page, Stereo configuration Change... and check if you really have selected Page-Flipping (less memory) from Windowed Configuration. Has your graphics board enough memory? You could also try to reduce the resolution.

How to enable OpenGL-stereo in the Nvidia Quadro driver:

This is working for Windows NT, 2000, XP only!
This is working for a Nvidia Quadro board or for a RivaTuner patched Nvidia Geforce1,2,3 board only!

The following steps have to be done with administrator privileges:

  1. Right-click on the Windows-background -> Click the properties item
  2. Display Properties opens -> Click on the Settings tab -> Click on the Advanced button
  3. Click on the Quadro tab -> Click on the Additional Properties... button
  4. Click on the OpenGL Settings tab
  5. Scroll down the Performance and Compatibility Options list
  6. Enable the Enable quadbuffered stereo API list item
  7. Optional: Click on the Additional OpenGL Properties... if you want to change more stereo options
  8. Close all setting dialogs
After that, stereo should work!

When switching the monitor off and on again, it might be that the shutter-glasses will be out of sync. To fix this you can:

Software configuration

To enable page-flipping in your web browser, your browser must support Sun's Java Plugin. Netscape 4.x does not support this! Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape 6.x and Mozilla 1.x are working well.

Basic software configuration

For all working browsers (IE, Netscape >=6, Opera, Mozilla) you have to do the following steps:
  1. Install Sun's Java Plugin
  2. Download and install Java3D (OpenGL Version) Runtime

If you have Java3D DirectX-Version installed, you must remove Java3D-DirectX before installing Java3D-OpenGL. Stereoscope Applet is working with Java3D-OpenGL only!

Internet Explorer

  1. Open the Java-Plugin-Settings in the control panel
  2. Enable the support for Internet Explorer on the Browser page of the Java-Plugin-Settings
When using a proxy:
  1. Open the Java-Plugin-Settings in the control panel
  2. Go to the Proxy page
  3. Disable Use browser settings and enter the appropriate values directly (you can get them from your system administrator)

Test your configuration

Netscape 6.x

  1. Open the Java-Plugin-Settings in the control panel
  2. Enable the support for Netscape 6.x on the Browser page of the Java-Plugin-Settings

Test your configuration

Testing your configuration

After you have completed the steps Hardware configuration and Software configuration you should test your setup:

If you had a JAVA 1.1 enabled browser, you would see a stereoscopic image here!
At www.stereophotography.com/java/browsers
you can find information about Java-compatible browsers and configuration!
For this moment you get a preview only (not clickable, no 3D!):


Testimage (JPS-File 52k)

Click on the image above to get the Stereoscope Applet Viewer. In the menu View->Shutter views there should be a new menu item called Page-Flipping. Select this menu item. When after some seconds the shutter image can be viewed correctly, everything is fine. If it is not working and you don't know why, you should open the Java-Console by double-clicking the Java-Icon in the Taskbar. Then you should clear the console output and select Help->About Stereoscope... from the menu of Stereoscope and look at the output in the Java-Console:

java.version must be 1.3.1 or bigger.

The rest of the output must be:

Page Flipping support:
Java2 ok
Java3D available
OpenGL Stereo available, PERFECT!

Otherwise you should check your hard- and software configuration again or send me your console output and the type of graphics board and shutter glasses you are using.

If you have some suggestions or a working configuration which is not mentioned here, please write to:
Andreas Petersik