Test Before Buying?

[Guest]

Hello,

I am very interested in using your software on our 4 wall CAVEs to have perfect alignment. There are a few things that I have to test first before I can list this as a solution for the company I work for (EON Reality). What I would need, if its possible, is 4 licenses that will last abut a week.

The main things I will be testing are.

1) Ease of use and setup. (Can test with demo I know)
2) Tearing when running our simulations (We have 4 projectors running at 120fps and with other software we have seen some tearing.)
3) Crashes or problems with running our software and 3d sync.

The reason I put the 3rd one is we have had issues with software warps before that made our software crash or act up.

It would be great to give this a try on our CAVE here and I will be taking some photos and videos as well as I need to show this internally to the company. If everything pans out then there is a good chance we will implement this into our CAVEs and other systems.

Thansk,

-G

[BHawthorne]

At the moment our software is limited to 3-channel spans, but we have 5-channel tentatively planned for Nthusim 4.1. For a cave you'd need 4 or 5-channel. I'm wanting to build up a cave project later this year myself, so getting 5-channel capability is definitely a priority.

1) With a CAVE, my assumption is you are just doing 1 projector per flat cube panel and calibrating to all the corners in an edge-butt method. That is very easily done with Nthusim. Just pull the edges of the Nthusim calibration grid to the corner locations and I'd add one centerline column and 1 centerline row to the grid so you'll compensate for any projection angle variation. It's very straight forward. Significantly easier to calibrate than our regular customers who are dealing with curved surfaces and edge-blends.

2) We have an optional FPS limiter setting in the Tools menu that you might set at 120 FPS. And also enable vertical sync in the video card driver and that should prevent taring. Taring can often be a function of the projector limitations, so depending on which projectors you use your mileage may vary.

3) Not 100% sure what 3D-Sync is, but Nthusim is certified for use with Nvidia 3D Vision Kit. Of the competitors out there, I believe we're the only ones that are using 3D shutter glasses to any extent.

Nthusim is developed by ImmersaView. It uses the same rendering and injection core as ImmersaView's Warp and SimVisuals products. Nthusim is their consumer product line. We have to delineate between commercial and consumer licensing in order for Nthusim to exist. If you're selling the CAVE builds to entities that are not charging out for the CAVE use, you might fall under our licensing arrangement. If you are selling CAVEs to commercial entities that generate income off the screen, I'd have to refer you over to ImmersaView to look into ImmersaView Warp or SimVisual licensing instead. ImmersaView allows Nthusim to exist as a product line strictly targeted at consumers. In exchange for that we refer all commercial/for-profit inquiries to ImmersaView and ImmersaView refers all consumer/non-profit/home inquiries to us. If you are selling your CAVE setups as a consumer turn-key solution, I'm sure we could come to an agreement to use Nthusim. It would also allow you to specify any particular features you'd like added to the Nthusim utility to better suit your needs.

-Brad

[Guest]

Hey Brad,

Thanks for the reply and good explanation. I am curious though, why we would need 5 channels?

The setup here is 4 computers with 4 projectors. Couldn't we treat each wall as a separate system? Or because we will be running simulations that will render across all walls we have to do a network type setup?

[BHawthorne]

[Guest]

Hi,

Our Caves will range in setup from 1-4 computers. The two we use the most are 2 and 4 computer setups.

The thing is these solutions aren't cheap and yes they aren't for consumers, but we have constantly fought with adding in a software warp to a solution that can be hand calibrated. Of course the hand calibration isn't going to be near what you could get with a software warp but like I said are the cost benefits there. I know for sure that the alignment will look perfect, now I have to check that the software warp doesn't effect the simulation. Then I can asses the time difference in setup.

We sell tons of Caves every year and have tons of current Caves that could really use a touch up with a warping software. Right now everything is done manually, and as an installation manager I am looking for ways to cut down our time out in the field. A well trained installation engineer will still spend half a day on manually calibrating the Cave walls to fit properly. This could also take up to a day depending on the situation. Also, calibrations will over time slightly drift, making you have to spend more time or at worse send someone back out to a clients site to re-calibrate.

I have been looking for a solution that we can couple with our systems and make a standard for all Cave and single projector warping solution on our curved screens.

I see you work with AMD quite bit, we use solely NVIDIA and Open GL.

Do you think it is possible to test out 4 licenses on the four computers here so I can verify that everything runs as it should. Like I said I don't need anything more than a week to test and then we can talk further on how we can work together to make this a complete solution for all of our future installs and systems.

Thanks,

-G

[BHawthorne]

Nthusim works fine with both Nvidia and AMD. While we've done some promotional marketing with AMD in the past, we've always product tested against both Nvidia and AMD video card hardware and drivers. I have ties with EVGA which is also Nvidia exclusive. My test rigs currently have one that is AMD R9 280X for Eyefinity testing and one that is Nvidia GTX770 3D Vision Surround.

Nthusim works fine with OpenGL pipeline. We target DX7-11, OpenGL and with version 3.5 and newer we have WDDM desktop warp also.

By default, Nthusim works on time limited demo mode when a license is not entered. It just needs to be reset every 10 minutes. That might be a bit of a pain with 4 different computers though. I'll talk with Alex and Andy and let them know of your interest. I should know more in the next 24 hours. They're located in Brisbane Australia, while I'm in Wichita, Kansas, USA so there is a bit of a logistical time lag when getting communication from upper management.

-Brad

[Guest]

Hi Brad,

Thats no problem there isn't any super rush on this. I am just really wanting to test out the solution so I can get a report out to the rest of team.

I am stationed in France but we have offices all over the world, so I understand.

Thanks,

-G

[Guest]

Hi,

Just checking back on this.

Thanks,

-G

[BHawthorne]

Email went out a bit earlier. Waiting for Andy to chime in. I'd expect a reply sometime in the next few hours.

-Brad