Stereo Viewing Tips

Some people find it difficult to see the stereo images. It is a skill that takes practice to develop. The more you do it, easier it will become and the better the effect. Here are some tips that can help:

1. Take your time. It may take a minute or two before you notice the effect, so take your time. You will probably notice the stereo effect in some parts of the screen before you are able to see it for the whole image. Keep looking, and the effect will slowly spread to the rest of the screen.

2. Relax. In order to see the stereo effect, your eyes have to look slightly beyond the image. If you are trying very hard to see the image, your eyes have a tendency to focus right on the image, which may destroy the stereo effect. Relax and slowly scan the image and you should begin to notice the effect.

3. Practice. In order to see the effect, your eyes have to learn a new way of seeing. This takes practice. The more you practice, the easier it will be to see the effect. After a day or two, most people can see the effect with little effort.

4. Start In Profile Mode. The stereo effect is most noticeable when the cave is viewed in profile, pitched slightly toward you. Most caves are wider than they are deep; so in plan view, there is not much depth to show the three-dimensional effect. In profile view, there is usually more range of depth, so there is more 3D effect.

5. The distance from screen makes a difference. Because everyone’s eyes are spaced differently, the optimum viewing distance varies from individual to individual. However, sitting further from the screen seems to work better.

6. Work In A Dark Room. The stereo glasses can produce reflections and glare from the room lights. As a result, the stereo effect is easier to if you work in a dark room.

7. Use Hidden Refresh and a Small Multiplier. Once you see the 3D effect, it is easy to lose it when you change the view. This is because your eyes have to adjust to sudden changes in the image. If you seem to lose the effect when you zoom, pan or rotate, use the Hidden Refresh and use a small Multiplier. These modes create much smoother transitions between images.

8. Large Caves.  If you are zoomed way out on a large cave with lots of overlapping passages, some viewing angles will be better than others. This is due to the fact that with a large cave, many passages are drawn on top of each other, obscuring some of the colors and minimizing the 3D effect.

You can solve this problem in two ways. First, you can view the cave from a different angle so that obscuring passages are rotated out of the way. You can also zoom in. This makes it less likely that large blocks of passages will overlap.