The Vectrex 3D imager plugs into the extra controller port on your Vectrex unit. You plop this beast onto your dome, and it sits, quite uncomfortably, onto the front of your grill. Then, when a "3D Cartridge" is played, you can enjoy luxurious 3D gaming - in color! This tricking of the vision requires extra steps in drawing of objects as well. From the Vectrex faq: "A single object that does not lie on the plane of the monitor (i.e. in front of or into the monitor) is drawn at least twice to provide information for each eye. The distance between the duplicate images and whether the right eye image or the left eye image is drawn first will determine where the object will appear to "be" in 3-D space. The 3-D illusion is also enhanced by adjusting the brightness of the object (dimming objects in the background)." The 3D Imager worked by spinning a translucent wheel in front of the eyes... 1/2 of the wheel was black, the other was colored, so that only one eye at a time would see the screen. The image was drawn twice onscreen with a slight shift... one for each eye to give "depth" to the image.
This design led to some unique problems with the glasses. Sometimes double images were seen due to natural human focus problems. Likwise, the wheel produced a gyroscopic effect that caused the disk to want to stay put when a person wanted to turn their head.
Only three games were ever released for this awesome Vectrex accessory. 3D Minestorm (which came bundled with the unit), 3D Narrow Escape and 3D Crazy Coaster. Though three other games were never released. Some homebrew games have been released by vectrex fans.
Original games for the 3D Imager developed and published by GCE
- 3D Mine Storm
- 3D Narrow Escape
- 3D Crazy Coaster
Unreleased prototype
Homebrew Games for the 3D Imager
Priceguide for the Vectrex 3D Imager sold at eBay
- Dec 2010: 3-D imager, boxed with MineStorm 3D and 3D Narrow Escape = 711 US$
- Nov 2010: 3-D imager, boxed with MineStorm 3D game from USA = 860 US$ / 630 Euro (actual Nov rate)
- Aug 2010: 3-D imager, unboxed + Sector-X cart, sold worldwide from USA = 565 US$
- April 2010: 3-D imager, boxed with MineStorm 3D game from USA = 511 US$ / 381 Euro (actual April rate)
- July 2009: 3-D imager, unboxed, sold worldwide from USA = 163 US$ / 115 Euro (actual July rate)
- April 2009: 3-D imager, boxed in superb condition from UK = 620 UK£ / 907 US$ / 640 Euro (actual April rate)
