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Highest Resolution Wall Around
akhaksho writes "NCSA (the National Center for Supercomputing Applications) is in the
process of building the highest resolution display wall in academia. This is similar to the previous story about the wall at Sandia, but the intention of this wall is to get very high resolutions at a reasonable cost using off the shelf technology (for the most part). All of the code to run it and plans for the physical infrastructure will be available as part of the Display Wall in a Box effort. I'm
one of the guys that built this sucker (and have the scars to prove
it!) "
Rock - On - Two - Three
Roll - One - Tw - Thre
The screen is 9'x12'; the *image* on the screen is about 8'x8'. We're still using an old screen from our original 2x2 CRT based IWall. Each tile is 1024x768 and is about 25" wide. 1024 dots / 25" = 40.96 dpi. If you look at the image referenced in the news release or the ones I posted earlier, you can see what I mean.
"Having the ability to zoom in and out on a high resolution monitor isn't enough. Neither is having a huge picture. They want both of these attributes in the same device. It makes it easier for a group to crowd around or for someone to do presentations with. They keep the detail and have it the size of a wall."
I agree that's very nice, but the price of this thing is enormously high for such a relatively small convenience. In a cost/benefit analysis I'd be very surprised if that would fly.
"Also (and I'm serious here) having big expensive toys that people look at and think "WOW THAT'S SO COOL" draws attention, which draws clients, which generates funds. Hey, they got posted on Slashdot, and now a million geeks know about their work. If even a fraction of them put any interest into the company, it will fund the "Highest Resolution Wall" project and pick up a few more participants. "
That's the only reason I can think might actually explain it, and the idea of that actually flying with a budget group is mind bending, to say the least. Maybe though.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
They do, occasionaly, let tourists play Quake in the CAVE.
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NICE.....
Wow, we discover another use for porn.
Fuck Ajit Pai
the doom faq explains how to do this...with doom
and the image on the wall would come from ... where exactly? Those 20 graphic cards are rendering the image fed to the LCD projectors that, uhm, project them into the wall.
It's not a screen, it's 20 projected images on the wall. Just remove 10 and you have "half" a display.
Having the ability to zoom in and out on a high resolution monitor isn't enough. Neither is having a huge picture. They want both of these attributes in the same device. It makes it easier for a group to crowd around or for someone to do presentations with. They keep the detail and have it the size of a wall.
Also (and I'm serious here) having big expensive toys that people look at and think "WOW THAT'S SO COOL" draws attention, which draws clients, which generates funds. Hey, they got posted on Slashdot, and now a million geeks know about their work. If even a fraction of them put any interest into the company, it will fund the "Highest Resolution Wall" project and pick up a few more participants.
Just my thoughts,
~LoudMusic
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Yeah, not to mention all of the computers driving it. A 40-node Linux cluster for the finished one? Geez...how about another computer lab instead? ;-)
Yeah, but chances are, you've not going to be sitting 12 inches away from this thing. You're gonna be sitting a good ways back.
Now where's my car?
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I want to see this with some Plasma screens. Take the packaging off (all the plastic crap to make it look nice) and i bet you could get them close enought to eachother to be useful. - 2nd post to Slashdot in my life
Considering that they're projection, and you could put the projector into something that contained the radiation. I don't think it would be much of a problem.. if at all.
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The 9-foot-high, 12-foot-wide screen can project images more than 20 times better than the typical computer monitor. The display surface--a screen divided into 20 sections--can display images of 4,096 x 3,840 pixels either as one large, high-resolution image or as several side-by-side images and information nodes.
OK, let's do some simple math. Let's say I run 1024x768, so this wall is going to be 4x as wide and 4x as tall, pixel-wise, correct? Now, if the screen is 9 feet tall and 12 feet wide, we get a diagonal of 15 feet (thank you, Pythagoras). The resolution is up about 4x, but it's spread over an area that is maybe 12x as large? (I'm using a simple 15" screen to keep the math simple.) We're talking about 1/3 reduction in dot pitch, aren't we? What's going on here?
I guess the application is for use a video wall to be seen from far away. Contrast this with that other enormous high-res display from that other article. It's clear that this wall will be more for public viewing, and not real "work," like medical imaging or whatever.
Nonetheless, though, I think it'd be cool to watch my DVD's on....
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
dude and dude above you: I totally missed that part of the article! I thought it was like the previous slashdot article had been. Just a really massive (but conventional) display. Sorry.
This isn't another one of those "GroutFree(tm)" scams, by any chance, is it?
Presumably each Linux PC is responsible for generating a subrectangle of the display. Yes, that would make it one of those "wussy grids of normal displays", but since they are using LCD projectors to throw up the image, they can calibrate them so as to make the tiled display fairly seamless.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Is this wall grout free and if so how do I install one in my shower?
At 8,096x3,840, those desktop icons are gonna be really small...
... they'll have the 80' model ready for U2's next tour
The problem I've run across so far with really cool display tech (Xinerama, etc) is that it is sort of transparent to apps. I would love to have complete transparency to apps (ie quake) so I could set my fov to 180 degrees with 5 monitors arranged all around my noggin. Just think of all that lovely radiation.
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
We're using WireGL, which is a distributed OpenGL implementation out of Stanford. It has some code in it to synchronize the displays. Since we're using Myrinet (gigabit network with low latency), the pipes sync up pretty well. As for the stereo, we don't plan to do either. There are no projectors of this cost and form factor that are capable of active stereo and the complexity of mounting the projectors for passive stereo are too horrible to contemplate! :) We've got the other 20 projectors and plan to build another identical block next to the one we've already got.
and the story about VisuaLABS groutfree wall display technology is related?
fp
"Display Wall in a Box" ... 40 projectors by the time they're finished. Too expensive for my blood.
They're running the projectors at 1024x768, which explains why it's compared at "20 times a typical system"; most projectors I've come across in a sane price range can't do more than this.
I will assume this will be an LCD as a CRT would width-wise be gigantic. Now my LCD (i dont know if they all are) is fixed at a resolution of 1024x768. Is this fixed as well, if so what resolution is it?
You mean a Circuit City TV-in-a-Box? Or a Circuit City Opened-TV-without-a-Box, but covered under the same warranty?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
In Issac Asimov's third novel in the Foundation series, Second Foundation, mathematicians used a video wall projector to display their equations. As described in the book, the Prime Radiant did not cast a shadow, yet the walls were covered with equations. The coolest thing was, you just thought about a part of the equation and those lines marched down the wall to eye level. So combine this video wall with the mind-activated cursor talked about in this issue of Wired and we're almost there.
For stereo, that is...
I will be making a few assumptions (my bad), so bear with me.
Imagine that you have all 40 of the projectors set up, but instead of 4 x 5, it is now 8 x 5, like so:
RLRLRLRL
RLRLRLRL
RLRLRLRL
RLRLRLRL
Now, imagine that the R's are one set of projectors, aligned to project onto the screen as the system currently is set up (4 x 5), and the L's are set up the same (so that an adjacent R and L project onto the same area, overlapping perfectly). Throw a set of polarized filters in front of each (or, for that funky 70's effect, red/blue filters - or just tweak the colors), then wear the proper glasses.
The drivers (and the cluster) would have to be set up to throw the proper image to the proper sections - I don't know if you would have to divide the cluster in half, or what, to do this (maybe even need driver mods - ouch)...
Actually, it shouldn't be too hard to set up - other than requiring double the horizontal space (plus there might be distortion issues as well, due to space between the projectors, I would imagine). Besides, you already said:
We've got the other 20 projectors and plan to build another identical block next to the one we've already got.
Could this work?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Oops.. my mistake.. that was a ceiling, not a wall.
Ratguy
Someone say Harenheight 451?
Rasskzhite gd nahoditsia etot chertova stranichka! Zaranee spasibo!
Nobody wants a display wall in the box
http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~prajlich/wall/newpi cs.html
Well, for one, visualizing massive data sets without windowing, or reducing the data density. I would think that in order to do zooming you may need more horsepower then to simply render a data set. This really is for the "Big Picture" type of applications. Think atmospheric interactions or galaxy simulations...
Oh, that's all BS. Let's just admit, that once again, the quest for better Pr0n and maximum gibs has led to better technology. Banners ads, high bandwidth database and server products, better resolution monitors and video cards, it all for pr0n and fragging! :P
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh bother.
This is old news. Search Slashdot for more
wall display advertising.
A display of this type would also make it easier to map objects at a cellular level... ie single cell organizms that are grown to the size of a wall at high resolution. Much easier to find new stuff in there versus with a traditional microscope or even a normal crt display. The Cave at the Beckman institute in Champaign-Urbana gives similar capabilities but in 3D.
Why? Wouldn't the computers work just as well with no display card period, booting off of a network card that images them, afterward using remote tools only? And even if it DOES have a graphics card, why a GeForce2? I can't imagine that it's actually used. Can anyone see how it would be....?
Um...how do you build half a display? Unless of course it's one of those wussy grids of normal displays, wtih two inches of dead space between each node on it. Anyone know?
The other thing that gets me is the use of the term resolution. In raw terms, this display actually has very poor resolution: about 28 dots per inch. If you stand way back from it, it might have a high number of dots per degree of arc of vision. But then, how bright is it from 100 feet away?
Military-Industrial-Oedipal complex. Thank you, Onion, for that one.
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
It is an issue of bandwidth. There's no way we could feed that many pixels or vertices at an interactive rate with only 4 machines. If there were something like a 64bit 66Mhz PCI video card, it would help, but doing it like this is the way to get the best performance. The Myrinet network is approximately the same bandwith as regular PCI, so it's well balanced. Also, the resolution per screen *is* 1024x768. I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that it's less.
The US Air Force has been working on the Interactive Datawall (http://www.rl.af.mil/tech/programs/ADII/adii_dw.h tml), which includes laser pointer tracking and voice recognition among other things.
Eventually they hope to have a portable version so various mil units can just cart them around to whatever theater they're needed in.
We've come a long way from LeMay's old "Big Board"...
:wq
What software divides the image and tells a particular video card to render a certain part of the screen? Is this done at the driver level? If so what facilitates the communication between drivers and cards? I'm not that familiar with clustering architecture, but i'm assuming that clustering and video rendering is transparent to the software generating the images. Any clustering gurus want to school me?
-ted
A resolution of 28 DPI sounds low until you figure that a typical display is only in the 72 to 100 dpi range, and is viewed from only about two feet away. A screen 18 feet wide by nine feet tall is unlikely to be looked at that closely -- It's more likeley to be viewed from about 10 feet or more away - any closer would effectively prevent someone from seeing the whole picture. And at that distance, that's the same apparent size per pixel, or better, than even high end monitors and displays.
As for brightness - as you get further away from a uniformly emitting planar surface, the brightness per unit angular area remais constant - merely the apparent total area decreases. If it's bright up close, it's bright enough at any distance at which it is a significant part of your field of view.
And with a fairly high powered cluster to generate the graphics, this can probably render animations of various problems (e.g. turbulent airflow over a surface) in real time on a 1:1 scale - not to mention 3d walkthroughs of complex structures and simulations of advanced weaponry.
Quake, anyone?
Liquor
Sanity is a highly overrated commodity.
finally, someone has made a beowulf cluster of monitors.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
Hi, in case you guys want to spend some time answering questions here, how are you syncing the graphics cards across the wall? SGI claims you need an Infine Reality to achieve decent syncronization, which otherwise is very noticeable. Personally I've seen one CAVE type of installation driven by PCs syncronized over a RS-323 port and I can't honestly say I noticed the projectors being out of sync.
Which takes me to the other question: are you using or do you plan to implement active stereo projection or do you want to install another 20 projectors and use a passive system?
If I was guessing, I'd say medical work. Digitized slides, molecular research, that kind of thing.
:)
Or maybe the professor just really likes Quake
I have been trying to think of what types of data display you could do on this type of screen
;]
some kick-ass fractals,
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
I don't know... huge video screens, like VR, kind of freaks me out. Too much of an opportunity to forego reality.
That what happens when you get computer guys trying to cut, drill, and tap aluminum extrusion!
Very large dataset display, a couple of things come to mind:
Pictures of the universe, it is hard to get things visible, and yet to scale from other things.
Very large graphs, the graph of the distribution of hosts across the internet.
Modeling of large molecules.
My first question as well!
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Thats a lot of pixels.
"Its not illegal if I dont see it" - Homer Simpson
If you get scars from building it, I don't wanna build one!
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Porn? Quake? Porn with Quake mods? Natalie Portman? what else do we normally talk about with new displays or display technology?
Ah hell, I'll just do a "predicted posts" style post instead.
. . . a Beowulf cluster of those. ;-)
This is an honest question, not a troll. I have been trying to think of what types of data display you could do on this type of screen that you couldn't do with more conventional technology. If it is sheer size you want projection technology can do that, and if you want fine grained imaging you can use high resolution computer monitors and zoom in and out. How does this really large, finely detailed display benefit the research? Again this is an honest question. The cost of this thing cannot be trivial. What do you see here that you can't see anywhere else?
:-) So, anybody have any ideas?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for technology for it's own sweet sake. But I'm curious how this is cost justified. Those reasons/rationalizations could prove very useful. (I doubt anyone I am likely to work for would consider Quake sufficient motivation, now that the golden days of the dot coms are over. Maybe these guys are just the coolest folks on the planet
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
I found this link which looks to be the same type of thing, only a lot smaller. It's priced at 20k, and would fit easily in a normal sized room.
visit my free wallpaper collection, wp.erasei.com
Does this by any chance use VisuaLABS GroutFree(tm) technology?
Wow!
"... 8,096 pixels across and 3,840 pixels high on an 18-foot-wide screen ... "
Porn wouldn't be any fun...
"Good Lord, I think I can see her kidneys!"
I'm jealous.
Woohoo !
So basically its like running multiple monitors only there highly converged projectors. One hell of a time coding a driver for that, but wouldnt offsetting the projectors to cover the pixelation effect yeild a higher resolution.
They eventually plan to upgrade to a 8096x3840 pixel display (I bet that's a typo and they meant 8192x3840) -- 8 wide, 5 tall -- using, you guessed it, 40 (8*5) Linux machines.
...is the PowerPoint presentation from Hell!
Shudder!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I guess i'd have to be more familiar with the WireGL and how it renders frames, but as long as most of the crunching is done on the video cards, I would think that you could do this with many fewer systems. Especially since you are only running at sub-1024x768 resolution per screen. How about 4 dual athlon PC's with 1 AGP and 4 PCI dual-head cards each? That would still give you the same number of pixels, at a significant savings in hardware cost.
Although you probably couldn't play quake on it, could you do most other things?
Neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
Thanks you.
PS: CmdrTaco was fed my semen last night. He asked for seconds.