University of Illinois uses a Cluster for Immersive VR

It seems the folks down at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created a 6-sided CAVE like system called ALICE. But, instead of running it off of a SGI Onyx, they've developed a distributed environment for visualization called Syzygy. Slap a few computers together and make your own holodeck!

Comments

Programs and graphics for this needed NOW

[Warvi]

See their HOWTO for building up your own setup at


http://www.isl.uiuc.edu/ClusteredVR/szg/doc/Para me terExamples.txt

That seems like pretty doable by any geeks with enough boxes.

That would say if the 3D immersion has any usability to it at all, it will be in common use in 10 yrs. It might become the next big thing in living rooms like TV became 40 years ago.

However, what makes a new technology break through is not what it enables, but what you get with it. TV would have had no use whatsoever without the television programs made to be watched with it. Computers only broke through when there were programs for it.

Umm, I sense a great opportunity for all people who can really do great 3D graphics.

Not to mention what I already said about getting 3D GUIs off the ground at


http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=25035&cid=27 18 945

Re:Programs and graphics for this needed NOW

[Mike Connell]

That seems like pretty doable by any geeks with enough boxes.

#include "Wry smile.h"

6 linux boxes and the clustering software is only half of the problem. The harder half is 6 or 12 videoprojectors (or more!), the mirrors and the (back) projection surfaces for the CAVE. Add in the tracking hardware (cost and complexity (ie EM interference)), and you have a lot more work to do.

Don't get me wrong - it excellent that it's feasable for a department to install their own fully immersive VE without an Onyx and a team of engineers, but you'll still need a team of grad students, builders and time.

Also dont forget that you need a *big* room for one of these too - say you have 2m high surfaces, you basically need 6-8m of vertical space once you include the space for the projectors and mirrors for the top/bottom 'walls'

Re:Programs and graphics for this needed NOW

[Mike Connell]

You could - it just wouldn't be very immersive. With a 3D environment in a CAVE you dont just stand in the centre, you actually walk around a bit. If a virtual object is in the way, you might lean around it, or crouch down to look under it, just like in real life.

This means that the views have to be created based upon where your head is - which is why at least one person will have a head tracker, if you dont have this, it doesn't feel immersive, it just looks plain wrong.

Of course, you could keep your head in the centre, and not move it but it kind of ruins the point. Also keep in mind that I am taking 3D stereo display for granted here, but it's not so easy with real cameras, especially if you want 360 degree recording.

Often people stick video images onto 2D objects (like the front of a virtual TV) within the 3D environment. That's pretty cool :-)

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