Windows 7 software for red / night vision monitors?

[Garbz (Chris)]

Hey guys. I'm wondering if anyone here has found any suitable solution to software simulating night vision on a Windows 7 machine? Or for that matter if anyone has any idea of how to convert the display to completely greyscale?

So far every free utility I've found seems to play with the per channel brightness settings in the video card. Unfortunately that has the effect of rendering blues and greens completely black and making the computer very difficult to use. Ideally I need a program that makes the display greyscale and then displays only red.

I have an ATI card. Not that an NVIDIA card would help since the saturation options in the control panel are applied after the per channel brightness.

Anyone got a decent solution?

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by Garbz

Hey guys. I'm wondering if anyone here has found any suitable solution to software simulating night vision on a Windows 7 machine? Or for that matter if anyone has any idea of how to convert the display to completely greyscale?

So far every free utility I've found seems to play with the per channel brightness settings in the video card. Unfortunately that has the effect of rendering blues and greens completely black and making the computer very difficult to use. Ideally I need a program that makes the display greyscale and then displays only red.

I have an ATI card. Not that an NVIDIA card would help since the saturation options in the control panel are applied after the per channel brightness.

Anyone got a decent solution?

red gel or ND screen

[Astro_Bot]

See this thread. Of course, I happen to think my advice at post #14 is best.

[DavidLJ (David)]

Chris. Maybe not what you may think of as a decent solution but you might like to try Night Vision Saver – free download from http://davesastrotools.weebly.com which floats a window that simulates a red rubilith over all or a selected part of your screen. It's not perfect in that you can't immediately access other windows underneath it but it can help if you only want to cover largely inactive windows or you don't mind moving it out of the way from time to time as needed

[Regulus (Trevor)]

This is an interesting read.
http://www.ehow.com/how_6969280_set-...ty-screen.html

Knightvision
"nightVision is free astronomy software that changes your video card's color brightness settings. This can be used to change the video settings to something less obtrusive to night vision. Some video cards don't support this function, also known as gamma ramping, but most do. KnightVision notifies you one way or the other...."

http://www.ehow.com/how_6969280_set-...ty-screen.html

Red Screen for Windows

Description:
A useful program for astronomers having a PC next to their telescope. It makes the computer screen red, keeping your eyes adapted in the darkness, since the red color does not disturb astronomic observations.

http://www.astrodigital.net/download...ndows.htmlHope something here helps

Trevor

[Garbz (Chris)]

Originally Posted by h0ughy

red gel or ND screen

Originally Posted by Astro_Bot

See this thread. Of course, I happen to think my advice at post #14 is best.

Red gels and filters have the same effect as eliminating the green and blue channels. I guess it can be combined with desaturating the display in the driver dialogue but you still need to manage having that gel on the screen. That resulted in a sticky mess last time I used it, and resulted in it flying off into the wind the time after.

Originally Posted by Regulus

This is an interesting read.
http://www.ehow.com/how_6969280_set-...ty-screen.html

Knightvision
"nightVision is free astronomy software that changes your video card's color brightness settings. This can be used to change the video settings to something less obtrusive to night vision. Some video cards don't support this function, also known as gamma ramping, but most do. KnightVision notifies you one way or the other...."

http://www.ehow.com/how_6969280_set-...ty-screen.html

Red Screen for Windows

Description:
A useful program for astronomers having a PC next to their telescope. It makes the computer screen red, keeping your eyes adapted in the darkness, since the red color does not disturb astronomic observations.

http://www.astrodigital.net/download...ndows.htmlHope something here helps

Trevor

Thanks for the suggestions but the windows theme solution doesn't affect content only the windows theme, and the rest of them suffer from the problems I'm trying to avoid. To illustrate the differences I've simulated them all below:

1: Original picture.
2: The target I'm trying to achieve. A perfect grey scale displayed only in red channel.
3: The effect of killing the green and blue in windows without first desaturating, note anything that was blue and green is now black which sucks if you have something important in blue or green on the screen.
4: Knight vision works only on the gamma and demolishes the tone on the screen while not actually eliminating the other colours very well.
5: Red Screen applies a semi-transparent red overlay to the screen which destroys contrast ratio.

[Astro_Bot]

Originally Posted by Garbz

Red gels and filters have the same effect as eliminating the green and blue channels. I guess it can be combined with desaturating the display in the driver dialogue but you still need to manage having that gel on the screen. That resulted in a sticky mess last time I used it, and resulted in it flying off into the wind the time after.

I use ND gel most of the time as that's enough for my needs, but I've never found the red gel an obstacle to seeing what's on screen with the programs I use. There's no sticky mess the way I do it (no mess at all, in fact) and it's never shown any inclination to "fly off". But each to their own. Good luck with whatever you choose.

[Garbz (Chris)]

Well one example is the reticle on PHD2 showing which star its tracking isn't easily visible through a red gel thanks to being bright green. Maybe I should buy a gel that doesn't have such strong transmission characteristics :-)

[astronobob (Bob)]

Originally Posted by Regulus

This is an interesting read.
http://www.ehow.com/how_6969280_set-...ty-screen.html

Trevor

This looks appropriate Trevor _ Ill give this a go I think

[Eden (Brett)]

Is this intended for use in a laptop scenario, or on a system with an external display?

[Regulus (Trevor)]

Dave's AStro Tools has a Night Vision Saver program free here:
http://davesastrotools.weebly.com/download.html

I haven't tried it but it's a small download that might be worth a look

[Garbz (Chris)]

Originally Posted by Eden

Is this intended for use in a laptop scenario, or on a system with an external display?

What's the difference?

Although to answer your question, both. My telescope has a small embedded PC connected to it with an iPad screen, but I mostly run it via remote desktop from a laptop.

Originally Posted by Regulus

Dave's AStro Tools has a Night Vision Saver program free here:
http://davesastrotools.weebly.com/download.html

I haven't tried it but it's a small download that might be worth a look

Hmmm, Chrome blocked a malicious download....

[Regulus (Trevor)]

Hmmm, Chrome blocked a malicious download....

Chris, I have just grabbed it and it downloaded and ran without problems.
It's not that useful however. It puts a 'transparent red window over the screen/ It can be resized to fit part or all of your monitor screen.
It has an intensity slider for the colour which can be Red/Grey/Blue or Green

The zipped file contains an .exe that is the program and not an install program.

Trev

[Garbz (Chris)]

It also appears to have the same effect as the last one.

At this point I may combine my efforts. I'm going to go with putting a red filter on the screen and then use the driver to change the output to greyscale that'll stop the red filter crushing colours like the blue trace in PHD2 (yes I know I can change the colour of that one )