3-D microscope view on a computer display, anybody?

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2600
 
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Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:16 pm

3-D microscope view on a computer display, anybody?

Post by 2600 »

This must qualify as a "rambling", I think.

What I want to find (or figure out how to hack) is a computer-display version of a stereo microscope.

The phrase "being dragged kicking and screaming" applies to my (small) experiences so far working with SMT, or surface-mount technology.

I've been lucky that the ham and CB radio equipment I service have lagged the consumer-electronics industry in the use of surface mount assembly methods. But, as someone once said, it's the wave of the present.

Folks I have met who work on this stuff for a living routinely use a stereo microscope as the tool of choice to see what they are doing when reworking a SMT printed-circuit board. It provides a perspective view of tiny objects as you manipulate them.

What I want is to adapt the 3-D display tech used in video games and Imax movie theaters. If you have never seen it, this uses a pair of glasses. Each lens is a big LCD "shutter". One lens is made opaque while the other lens is clear. It is synchronized to an electronic display that alternates a left-eye view with a right-eye view. While the left-eye 'frame' of the display image is visible, the left eye (only) is transparent. When the next frame is displayed, the right-eye view can be seen only by the right eye.

So long as the number of frames displayed per second is high enough, no visible flicker is added to the viewed image.

What I really want to do is to take a stereo microscope and install a video camera in place of each eyepiece. The left-eye and right-eye images would then be fed into this "3D" display software, so that you can see the microscope's perspective view on a conventional display screen, using the LCD 'shutter' glasses.

The intent here is to clearly view tiny SMT parts being manipulated without having to bend over a pair of optical eyepieces.

The handwriting has been on the wall for years, that I must acquire the tools and techniques to remove and replace SMT parts. Likewise, the need to use them for building odd little gadgets has finally become unavoidable.

That handwriting has been on that wall so long it's beginning to fade.

But my "3D microscope" display on a computer display screen idea just seems too obvious. Never pursued any effort to work it up myself. Figured someone else would go to all the expense and bother and make it practical. Would save me the aggravation and expense.

But so far I have neither seen nor heard any hints of an effort to try this.

Poked around Source Forge, but it's like a library with all the books on the floor. It could be there, and escape my notice. Easily.

I just can't believe nobody else has thought of this yet.

Wouldn't be natural.

{/end rant}

2600
 
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:16 pm

Re: 3-D microscope view on a computer display, anybody?

Post by 2600 »

Whoaa. A real milestone today.

800 views, and nobody else wants to try this?

Not sure how much I do.

Yet.

Maybe I should cruise SourceForge for a 3-D API?

And if someone is already selling this in a package of some sort, I have missed it.

73

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amberwolf
 
Posts: 310
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2008 2:42 am

Re: 3-D microscope view on a computer display, anybody?

Post by amberwolf »

Sorry, I never saw this topic till now (but I'm relatively new here).

Love the idea, and back in the 90s when I first saw some 3D video card with stereo vision optional output (for glasses just as you describe) I wanted to do something like that, but had no idea how to start.

I still don't, unfortunately, other than the basics you've already listed, more or less:

Take in image from each microscope camera.
Turn on only left glasses lens.
Display left image on full video display.
Turn on only right glasses lens.
Display right image on fully video display.
Rinse and repeat at least 60 or 70 times a second.

Alternately, if you don't want anything other than standard video resolution or less, you could take two small LCD video screens (there have been Watchman style sets made in 2" or smaller screens by a number of companies over the years), place the LCDs in a headset in such a way as each eye would see only one of them but be able to focus on it, then feed the video signal from each camera directly to each screen.

If not LCD, then using the viewfinders off of old VHS video cameras would work. Many of them just need a single lowvoltage power supply plus a composite video signal. Some also have to have external pots for brightness or contrast. All the ones I've got like this are grayscale-only, though, so I don't know about the color versions (if any).

That approach would be very simple to design and build, as long as the video displays in question were easy to take apart and reassemble in the manner desired. Disadvantage is that it's very likely to be heavy to wear for any length of time.

Doing it to a video screen with just LCD shutters on the glasses is not that much more complicated, but you'd have to design and build a video switcher that switched between cameras every other frame, and you'd need cameras that could be externally clocked, rather than simple composite output, if you wanted to ensure they were always in sync with the glasses and video switcher. The video output of the switcher would just go to the video monitor of your choice, and the clock output would toggle the glasses' lenses back and forth.

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