I received my C3DV viewer less than a week ago. For those not familiar with it you can follow this link, http://www.cyclopital3d.com/index.html

The $800 USD viewer is well made and a solid feel. The viewing lenses are high quality. The video display screens on the two monitors built in the unit are good but the magnifying viewer lens does such a good job that you can see the screen pixels. If you are familiar and use slide viewers such as a Red Button Realist viewer you probably will not be pleased with the digital displays.

I find a couple of flaws that bother me, one is the poor quality of the painted surface of the Viewer. Dust caught in the paint, paint runs, and harden paint drips detract from the quality of the viewer. The second flaw I see is the space allowed around the viewing lenses. The lenses are focal adjustable and for me are easily adjusted for me to view the screens with or without my glasses, I wear variable trifocals. The opening in the Viewer face to allow for the lenses to protrude are oversize and allow dust to enter the unit. I received my Viewer with dust and a hair on the inside glass of the viewing lenses. An Allen wrench is supplied to remove the digital displays from the viewer housing for easy of cleaning the back of the lenses or front surface mirrors. I have not attempted this as of yet.

The instruction manual and other documents, along with sample images are stored on the internal memory of the left display unit (PMP, Personal Media Player) .  For some reason the Sample images were not installed on my unit as stated in the Owner’s manual. I needed to convert a few of the images I had to view in the C3DV as the images need to be reduced in size and mirrored, then loaded left images in left viewer, right in right viewer and of course in the same sequential order for both viewers. While this is a simple operation it took me close to 3 hours to do with 5 images. This was of no fault of the C3DV as they supplied the USB cords, AC Chargers and complete instructions.  I had made several mistakes in converting the images in SPM and reluctant to read the instructions as I should have done.  ;-)  Now that  I have loaded several images and several folders to the PMP’s it is much easier and only a matter of minutes to do.

I did have a problem in loading other images. I converted about 25 images in SPM and downloaded them in the appropriate PMP’s of the viewer. Upon viewing them I had about 10 of them that had what appeared to be compression corruption issues. I sent an email and called the President of the company, Ken Burgess and with his assistance I was able to “fix” the images. The problem was not with the PMP’s as I thought but instead the files I had problems with had been corrupted. I am not sure how that happened but I will try to repeat the workflow process and see if I can duplicate the issue again. The issue for the PMP’s was that the files metadata information had been corrupted. But what I found good was the willingness of the CEO/President of the company to provide the assistance in resolving the issue. He had provided his cell phone number in an email upon the acknowledgement of the sale and said if I had any problems to call, I did.

I have been viewing, taking, mounting stereo images for 20+ years off and on. I can free view in both parallel and cross eye. I have several slide viewers and use anaglyph when I am projecting, so my eyes are “trained” (?)  I can see the images in the Digital viewer with absolutely no problems. But at first I could also see the pixels of the display. In a week’s time I don’t see them as much as I did before because I am simply able to ignore them.  I also have the Fuji V1 8 inch Viewer where no glasses are required to see the images on the display. I tell you this because in my recent class I was teaching I used all three, anaglyph, Fuji Viewer and the C3DV to demonstrate to the students. ALL of the students preferred viewing the images with the C3DV. My wife who doesn’t appreciate 3D images has used the C3dV and likes it very much.

My conclusion.  I enjoy using the viewer, I wish the resolution was greater but it is satisfactory for my needs. I am thrilled that I can show the images to others and they can see the images. Most have said “WOW”. Some are even more excited!  Even though the images are not as brilliant as looking on my computer monitor they are good enough!  I am happy with the viewer. Your opinion may vary.

Hayden B. Baldwin
Forensic Enterprises, Inc.
www.feinc.net
hbb(-at-)feinc.net