As I'm sure you know, ELSA has made a big name for themselves in the consumer video arena, with their Erazor, Victory and Winner line of cards they have done a great job at putting their video expertise to work.  Now, they have done something different, they have attempted to turn flat 3D into real 3D with their new 3D Revelator LCD stereoscopic shutter glasses. What exactly do I mean by real 3D?  Well, 3D accelerators as great as they are, only take a 3D image and map it to a flat 2D monitor.  There is very little sense of depth or realism.

ELSA's 3D Revelator glasses use a technology called stereoscopic vision, which like its audio counterpart, uses 2 distinct images to form a sense of depth.  What happens is that a left and right image are separately generated and displayed on screen.  The LCD lenses allow either the left eye or the right eye to see the image and then it switches to other eye at an incredibly high speed.  Because of the high speed, the brain merges this information together and thus a sense of depth is formed.  The glasses refresh at a rate of 100-140Hz so that the switching between left and right images is not perceptible at all.

This technology is not new, in fact its been tried many times, but none have succeeded because of poor implementation or they only worked on specifically coded games.  ELSA on the other hand has gotten these glasses to work with 99% of games that use Microsoft's Direct3D API.  OpenGL games currently do not work, but I don't see why they wouldn't in the near future. 

Here are the specs and requirements, courtesy of ELSA's Web Site:

Features: Versions: Infra-red version and cable version Refresh Rates: 100-140 Hz some individuals may experience screen flicker at lower refresh rates Power Supply:     Infra-red version: batteries, type CR2032, life cycle ca. 200 hours     Cable Version: via connector cable LCD Separation: Infra-red version: individually adjustable, 5.5-6.5 cm Shutter Dimensions: Width 29.5 mm x height 23 mm Connector: VESA stereo standard, 3 pin Mini-DIN Requirements: System: The computer meet the system requirements as recommended by 3D applications. Graphics Board: ELSA VICTORY II, ELSA WINNER II, ELSA ERAZOR II or ELSA ERAZOR III Monitor: Monitor: Any monitor capable of minimum100 Hz refresh rate in the desired resolution (recommended)

Ok, I think we shall take a moment and look some of this information.  ELSA has both an infra-red and cable version available.  The nice thing about the infra-red version is that you can move around anywhere and there is no cable lying around to bother you.  However, we had the opportunity of testing the cable version and to tell you the truth, it didn't bother us one bit.  The cable is so thin and long that it didn't even feel like it was there.  Besides, with the infra-red version, you have buy batteries :)  By the way, the picture above shows the infra-red version.

The other important thing to note is that the 3D Revelator must be used with one of the ELSA cards mentioned above.  Unfortunately, this limits the amount of people who can use this product.  ELSA has made the glasses work with a vast majority of games but only people with their cards can enjoy it.  Fortunately, we were able to gather that ELSA is willing to license  their technology out to other companies so that it can work with other cards in the future.  For now, owners of ELSA cards will be the lucky ones.  The only other requirements of the glasses are that your monitor supports at least a 100Hz refresh rate and that your system is capable of playing the games you want.  Most people have monitors that can support great than 100Hz refresh rates at 640x480 and 800x600 so this shouldn't be a problem.

One more quick note, these glasses are incredibly lightweight and pretty comfortable too.  I was happy to see that these glasses fit well on people who wear regular vision-correction glasses (we actually have to distinguish nowadays!).  I personally wear glasses, and I was able wear both at the same time with comfort.  The 3D Revelator glasses didn't slip off or pull tightly on the ears.  However, it would have been nice if ELSA could have made them a bit more stylish!

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