You hear an idea and you are skeptical at first. I mean, I’ve never really cared for 3D…mainly because it sucks. Too many times the image doesn’t even really appear all that 3D to begin with, and even then it is pretty bad. Along comes the IZ3D monitor which has really changed my perspective on the idea of 3D.

The IZ3D monitor is a LCD 17’ display with a resolution of 1280x1024. Contrast ratio is 500:1 and the response time is 8MS. Now, I don’t know what game it was they were running, but it was most definitely in the FPS genre. The tech works by diverting the screen into two different base images that affect the pixels of the screen. By separating these images into two, it makes the eyes focus differently. When you put on the special eye glasses (thankfully not the stupid ones of drive-ins past, because these look like regular sunglasses) things really do pop out in a neat way. And the image wasn’t in red and blue either…it just looked like a blurry screen without the glasses.

Most notable of the “pop” was the map that appears at the very top right of your screen. The image itself looks like it is flush and straight with the monitor, but everything else is sunk in, but yet in some ways certain things pop out like tanks and other vehicles as well as the characters too. So imagine a tank crawling across the ground and it actually looks like it is in the foreground while the ground it is rolling on is in the back. True 3D imagery I’m talking about here.

Not that sure on how accessible the system requirements are though, because it requires a Pentium 4 2GHZ or Athlon XP 2000+, 256 MB RAM, Nvidia Graphics card with dual output, and Windows. So it seems like the monitor is pretty specific and needy, but the point is that it still was fun.

However, I didn’t get to spend too long with it, so whether or not long term exposure would cause headaches is beyond me. But after seeing this product, I am interested in seeing the world of 3D more…but I refuse to checkout that Spy Kids 3D…just won’t happen.