The wonderful folks at NVIDIA 3D Vision Live surprised me last week by awarding me the 2012 Photo Champion award. This was the culmination of much support from our fans as well as two previous monthly awards on the 3D Vision site. It’s an honor to receive this award, and my deepest thanks go out to everyone involved. (Detailed thank-you’s below.)

We’ve been working with NVIDIA to roll out some of the world’s most ambitious 3D content, and as part of this new venture they encouraged me to look at our work on some of their high-end 3D rendering hardware. Now, as most of you know, I’m a Mac lover through and through, but one of Apple’s few major shortcomings is its lack of 3D support. So after a week-long test-drive of NVIDIA’s butt-kicking Quadro 5000 graphics card, I decided to make a foray back into the Windows world and build SlickforceStudio a new 3D PC workstation. After reading many reviews and speaking with several friends in both the visual effects and 3D worlds, here’s the setup I opted for (pictured below):

Eizo ColorEdge CG275W 27″ LCD display (left)
BenQ XL2420T 24″ 3D LED display with 3D Vision Lightboost (right)
NVIDIA Quadro 5000 2.5GB Graphics Card
NVIDIA 3D Vision Pro hub & active-shutter glasses system
Wacom Intuos 4 Medium tablet

First, let me say that this Quadro 5000 card is a BEAST. At an inch thick and with built-in fan big enough to cool a small tower, it takes up two bays on your machine and looks like no graphics card I have ever seen. That said, it’s also the best visual experience I’ve ever had on a PC. Rendering out both 3D video and stills and fast and effortless, once you get used to the new workflow. The Eizo display is absolutely gorgeous and showcases some of the richest color I’ve ever seen. The BenQ 3D display with 3D Vision with Lightboost is awesomely bright, which 3D connoisseurs know is almost always a problem with shutter-glasses systems, because you lose half the light in each eye. Not here. The 3D is absolutely beautiful and perfectly luminous (and unlike iPads using red-cyan glasses you retain full color information.)

As a test, we converted a portion of WMB 3D to be viewed on the 3DVision Pro system, and I can honestly say our 3D images have never looked better. Clint Davis‘ layouts jumped off the page, and it made me yearn for the day when everyone can view our content in full-color 3D.

My sincerest thanks go out to Steve Klett and Sean Kilibride at NVIDIA, and also to Thomas Gadbois at Eizo for helping us put this fantastic system together. I also must thank the amazing Saglimbeni3D team who continues to create and innovate in a new world with never-enough resources: Post-production supervisor Joyce Park, Director of Operations Kevin Savarese, lead engineer German Pinchevsky, photographer Christian Arias—this would only be a dream without you all.

For me, the NVIDIA 3D Vision Champion award is another landmark step in showing the world the undiscovered beauty of 3D photography, and I am grateful to all who have supported us in our journey.

For more on the 2012 Photo Champion Award, visit NVIDIA’s 3D Vision Live site here.