How to control stereo-frames separately with C#? (NVIDIA 3D shutter glasses)

See more:

C#

DirectX

3D

I’m trying to make a very simple application which would display different images on each eye. I have Asus VG236H monitor and NVIDIA 3D Vision kit, the stereo 3D shutter glasses. The I’m using C#, .NET Framework 2.0, DirectX 9 (Managed Direct X) and Visual Studio 2008. I have been searching high and low for examples and tutorials, have actually found a couple and based those I have created the program but for some reason I can’t get it working.

When looking for examples how to display different images for each eye, many people keep referring to the NVIDIA presentation at GDC 09 (the famous GDC09-3DVision-The_In_and_Out.pdf document) and the pages 37-40. My code is mainly constructed based on that example:
1. I'm loading two textures (Red.png and Blue.png) on surface (_imageLeft and _imageRight), in function LoadSurfaces()
2. Set3D() function puts those two images side-by-side to one bigger image which has the size of 2x Screen width and Screen height + 1 (_imageBuf).
3. Set3D() function continues by appending the stereo signature on the last row.
4. OnPaint()-function takes the back buffer (_backBuf) and copies the content of the combined image (_imageBuf) to it.

When I run the program, shutter glasses start working, but I only see the two images side-by-side on the screen. Could someone help out and tell me what am I doing wrong? I believe that solving this problem might also help others as there does not yet seem to be a simple example how to do this with C#.

Here are the tactical parts of my code. Complete project can be downloaded here: http://koti.mbnet.fi/jjantti2/NVStereoTest.rar

public void InitializeDevice()
{
    PresentParameters presentParams = new PresentParameters();

    presentParams.Windowed = false;
    presentParams.BackBufferFormat = Format.A8R8G8B8;
    presentParams.BackBufferWidth = _size.Width;
    presentParams.BackBufferHeight = _size.Height;
    presentParams.BackBufferCount = 1;
    presentParams.SwapEffect = SwapEffect.Discard;
    presentParams.PresentationInterval = PresentInterval.One;
    _device = new Device(0, DeviceType.Hardware, this, CreateFlags.SoftwareVertexProcessing, presentParams);
}

public void LoadSurfaces()
{
    _imageBuf = _device.CreateOffscreenPlainSurface(_size.Width * 2, _size.Height + 1, Format.A8R8G8B8, Pool.Default);

    _imageLeft = Surface.FromBitmap(_device, (Bitmap)Bitmap.FromFile("Blue.png"), Pool.Default);
    _imageRight = Surface.FromBitmap(_device, (Bitmap)Bitmap.FromFile("Red.png"), Pool.Default);
}

private void Set3D()
{
    Rectangle destRect = new Rectangle(0, 0, _size.Width, _size.Height);
    _device.StretchRectangle(_imageLeft, _size, _imageBuf, destRect, TextureFilter.None);
    destRect.X = _size.Width;
    _device.StretchRectangle(_imageRight, _size, _imageBuf, destRect, TextureFilter.None);

    GraphicsStream gStream = _imageBuf.LockRectangle(LockFlags.None);

    byte[] data = new byte[] {0x44, 0x33, 0x56, 0x4e,   //NVSTEREO_IMAGE_SIGNATURE         = 0x4433564e
                              0x00, 0x00, 0x0F, 0x00,   //Screen width * 2 = 1920*2 = 3840 = 0x00000F00;
                              0x00, 0x00, 0x04, 0x38,   //Screen height = 1080             = 0x00000438;
                              0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x20,   //dwBPP = 32                       = 0x00000020;
                              0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x02};  //dwFlags = SIH_SCALE_TO_FIT       = 0x00000002;

    gStream.Seek(_size.Width * 2 * _size.Height * 4, System.IO.SeekOrigin.Begin);   //last row
    gStream.Write(data, 0, data.Length);

    gStream.Close();

    _imageBuf.UnlockRectangle();
}

protected override void OnPaint(System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs e)
{
    _device.BeginScene();

    // Get the Backbuffer then Stretch the Surface on it.
    _backBuf = _device.GetBackBuffer(0, 0, BackBufferType.Mono);
    _device.StretchRectangle(_imageBuf, new Rectangle(0, 0, _size.Width * 2, _size.Height + 1), _backBuf, new Rectangle(0, 0, _size.Width, _size.Height), TextureFilter.None);
    _backBuf.ReleaseGraphics();

    _device.EndScene();

    _device.Present();

    this.Invalidate();
}