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Virtual Reality/CAVE Software?

Posted by Cliff on from the building-your-own-digital-world dept.

WorthlessManatee asks: "I work for a company that is in the beginning stages of constructing our own CAVE and I would like some advice on a few topics. Which hardware vendors should I go through? I know of Fakespace, but are there other vendors I should be looking at? What software solution works best for a CAVE? So far I know of: VR Juggler, DIVERSE, and CAVELib? What are the pros and cons of each of them? Answers to these questions and any other hints or experiences you would care to share would be most appreciated. Thank you very much."

1 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. The UAEU-CAVE experience by aokeil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What do you mean by "constructing our own CAVE"? Really constructing your own CAVE as we did at the department of Architecture, UAEU? or have a company construct it for you?

    In our case I selected to construct it myself using of-the-shelf components. We have a cluster of 3xP4s + windows 2000. more info found at: http://www.engg.uaeu.ac.ae/a.okeil/uaeu-cave/

    A nswers to your questions depend on several determining factors such as:
    1- What type of applications will you display?
    2- Do you need navigation+interaction or only navigation? What type of interaction.
    3- Do yoiu plan to integrate other input devices? tracking systems?
    4- How do you plan to create your applications (on the long run might cost more than the initial cave investment).
    5- Is the cave ment to be a showcase for your company or is it for internal use?.

    In our case simplicity of creating the application came before anything else. We selected to start with programs students of architecture already use such as AUTOCAD, 3DS MAX and FormZ. The models are exported to the VRML format. The model is then displayed using a web browser + the cortona plug-in. A small application was developed to synchronize events on all screens. That is all you need to navigate through a virtual world in our cave. I think it can never get simpler. If you need some interaction then you have to start working on the VRML level using VRMLPAD for example.

    This approach has saved us and our students the hasle of going into programming in languages none of us know. In 5 minutes you can have your 3D model out of Autocad running in the cave. I hope this reply answers some of your questions. Let me know if you have other questions.