Gaming with a Fresnel Lens

[MZ]

A few weeks ago I read about this on another forum, and it sounded pretty interesting...
Basically it's a thin lens you put in front of your monitor and it creates a few effects: It makes the viewable area appear huge, and it gives a sense of depth by making the eyes focus far.

I got my lens (model F550) yesterday from 3Dlens it cost ~50 CAD total including shipping, and it took just over a week the get here by air mail. It is 400 x 320 x 2 mm.

Well first I made a mount out of cardboard and a rubber seal thing I found.
Here's a pic of the mount with lens inside (and my self-made wood mousepad )

The mount is temporary, eventually i'll build one that's adjustable and looks nice.

Well, the difference in games is incredible. It becomes way more immersive. You actually have to move your eyes around, and it feels more natural. It's like the difference between looking at a small box, and staring into a window. If I take the lens off now I have a hard time believing that I stared at that tiny box for years! Also, since my eyes focus far now they don't feel strained after looking at the screen for a long time. There's no problem with distortion and reading text so I don't have to bother taking it on and off.

I took a few pics, but the only difference you'll see is in size. You need to see it with your own eyes to appreciate the depth effect.

Pics are from the exact same postion

without lens:


with:

Notice how the camera can see the whole screen in the top pic, but misses a lot on the bottom.

I think it was well worth the money. If you play alot of 3D/FPS games I highly reccomend you try it.
At the very least you'll greatly upgrade your monitor size, but I'm sure you'll be able to feel the effects I described.
Even if for some reason you don't like it you can use the lens with sunlight to burn things :>

[Father Grigori]

Wont you get eyeaches with that??? Atleast i could imagine if i play with the lens. Eyes would ''burn''

[MZ]

Wont you get eyeaches with that??? Atleast i could imagine if i play with the lens. Eyes would ''burn''

Actually I find that its the opposite. After using a normal monitor for a long time and I look away I find that my vision is a little blurry. With this lens I don't have that problem.
Remember that this lens tricks the eye into focusing far, which is better for the human eye than staring up close.

[FliesLikeABrick]

er, except that isn't a fresnel lens people need to stop calling it the wrong thing :-x

[VijchtiDoodah]

Flies, technically it is a Fresnel lens, that's the only way sheet magnifiers can be made so small.  But it's really not worth worrying about.

[GluLm]

I find it quite interesting... won't you get a bit tired by looking all around though? I mean if you have to move your eyesight to see what's going on here and there you might get tired in no time.

MZ wrote: Remember that this lens tricks the eye into focusing far, which is better for the human eye than staring up close.

Thanks for the tip Michal, I never thought about that and you're actually right. :)

[FliesLikeABrick]

see below (other post)

* FliesLikeABrick does engineering for a place that designs and manufactures lighting fixtures

no, it is not a fresnel lens.  go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_lens and scroll down.  look at the cross section.

I can't tell exactly from the pictures, but people have a tendency to call it a fresnel lens whenever it is "big and spreads light out." 

a fresnel lens is a very particular ridged type of lens, as that cross section shows (the one that compares it to a PC lens).

You can't see anything through a fresnel lens, it distorts everything beyond recognition


edit: whoa, look what these forums do to /me


edit2:
15:15 < Spyder`> show off
15:18 <@FliesLikeAWork> Spyder`: its not a matter of showing off, its a matter of the fact that people who build projectors and do things like that are calling it the wrong thing.  if they go to a hardware store and say "give me a 15" fresnel lens" they're going to be very unhappy with what they get
15:19 < Spyder`> i was just kidding when i said that
15:19 < Rambo_6> way to go
15:20 <@FliesLikeAWork> the point stands, at least now I don't look like that much of an ass... I think
[/s]

[Rambo_6]

* Rambo_6 is amazed.

Well, i can't really notice any noticable difference. I'm not that much into gaming

[FliesLikeABrick]

yeah, I don't see a difference between the two pictures in the original post :-/

[Frigid]

I see some glare

[Eagles_Arrows]

Does the lens get rid of the glare?

[Anna]

The magnification effect is pretty impressive when you see it for yourself, it really makes the monitor seem much bigger than it is. I didn't get a chance to try playing anything with it though, and it made reading a bit harder.

FliesLikeABrick, I'm pretty sure it is a fresnel lense. From the wikipedia article:

Cheap Fresnel lenses can be stamped or moulded out of transparent plastic and are used in overhead projectors, projection televisions, and hand-held sheet magnifying glasses.

That's basically what MZ has.

[FliesLikeABrick]

interesting. I stand quite corrected and apologize.  I'm used to the ground glass fresnel lenses that are what they show in that profile in the article, and wasn't aware that the "cheap plastic" version was still called a fresnel lens

[MZ]

It's kinda hard to notice the difference in those pics...
I overlapped both images to do a comparison, the red area is what the camera cannot see while the lens is on.

But remember that this only shows the optical magnification, none of the funky depth effects.

Does the lens get rid of the glare?

No that's one thing it does not do
Generally, it increases the amount of visible glare (since there's 2 things for light to bounce off of instead of 1), but it's not a problem for me as long as I keep the blinds in my room closed during the day.
OK I did another comparison pic to (hopefully) simplify things.
My screen is ~16" corner to corner (about the exact size of the pic without the lens)
With the lens on, photographed from the same distance it appears to be ~22".

The green is additional screen area.
 

[a-4-year-old]

wow, what an improvement, i need one of those so i can see my soldats better!