Hands on with Zalman's 3D Trimon monitor

Posted at: 5:23am 6th December 2007 by Alex Watson

We've spent a week staring into the next dimension with Zalman's incredible 3D TFT screen - read on for our impressions

Along with the words ‘starring Robin Williams’ and ‘a heartfelt comedy’, ‘in 3D!’ used to be the line on a film poster that would strike fear into one’s heart. Technical limitations 3D visuals became little more than a fad, fit only for the back of a box of Frosties. The kind of novelty 3D illustration – technically termed anaglyptic images – seen on breakfast cereals usually requires glasses with red and blue lenses and lots of patience. It’s a somewhat sad state of affairs considering a usable 3D PC screen seems a rather distant prospect.

You can imagine our surprise then when Zalman announced it would be making a range of 3D TFT screens. Even given consumer grade 3D imaging’s ropey reputation, the fact Zalman is best known for its coolers and cases meant the news came out of the blue. Our scepticism grew when we were offered the chance to check out hand-built early samples screen in the summer at the Computex show in Taiwan and they proved to be extremely temperamental and incapable of generating a decent sense of 3D space.

However, that has all changed – we’ve had a production sample of Zalman’s Trimon ZM-M220W, the company’s 22in widescreen 3D screen, in our labs for the past week and it’s a remarkable piece of kit. It’s certainly not perfect, but the sense of 3D space and depth it creates is genuinely impressive, particularly in games such as World of Warcraft. Everyone who dropped by the CPC lab and saw it in action was surprised and, it’s not hyperbole to say, amazed by its abilities.

There are, of course, some downsides, limitations and quirks. While the Trimon doesn’t rely on anaglyptic images to produce 3D images, you do still need to wear special glasses in order for its 3D powers to affect you, as it works using a technique known as stereoscopy. This involves showing the viewer two offset images, which the viewer’s brain then interprets as being single scene with depth. The Trimon achieves its stereoscopic effect with polarized glasses that work in tandem with two polarizing filters on the surface of the monitor itself. The two polarizing filters are orientated at right angles, as is the filter in each lens in the pair of glasses; the lenses’ filters then only allow light of similar orientation to pass through, which is how the system presents each eye with a slightly different picture. Your brain then does the rest of the work and you see a 3D image.

Unlike with anaglyptic glasses, the combination of polarizing filters and glasses preserve the colour integrity of the image on screen, so as well as creating the impression that you’re seeing 3D, the shapes you see retain their original tones, which certainly helps make the image more convincing.