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100 Million Pixels of Virtual Reality
Roland Piquepaille writes "It's ironic that Iowa State University (ISU) announced a big upgrade of its C6 virtual reality (VR) room the same day as SGI filed for bankruptcy. Back in 2000, this 10x10x10 foot room was powered by SGI Onyx2 computers. The new version of this six-sided VR room will use 96 graphics processing units from Hewlett-Packard. And with its 24 Sony digital projectors, the researchers at ISU will immerse themselves into images of about 100 million pixels in the most realistic VR room in the world. Of course, this upgrade is not cheap. But with this $4 million addition, this new C6 should lead to new advances in urban planning, genetics, engineering or unmanned aerial vehicles."
ISU is home to the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the first electronic digital computer.
I can only comment about the API - we're using something that is a standard (for us) and that fills in as nice middleware: VRJuggler. It sits atop (among other things) OpenGL.
There are no head-mounted displays that will deliver anything like the pixel resolution of a system like this. You simply wouldn't get the detail. And, the data infrastructure for this kind of project (where the aim is to visualize complex data) is not possible on "relatively standard class hardware". Another thing: In a cave environment like this, if you turn your head, the graphics view is updated only slightly or not at all. With a head-mount display, the whole scene has to swing round when you turn your head. If there's any latency in head-tracking (likely) or graphics rendering (possible), then the cave is much less unsettling per head-turn than is the head-mounted display. Less nausea. And another thing: you get a much larger peripheral view in a cave, leading to better understanding of context. Undisclaimer: I work for HP. :-)
5-8-06
Contacts:
James Oliver, Virtual Reality Applications Center, (515) 294-2649
Chiu-Shui Chan, Architecture, (515) 294-8326
Eve Wurtele, Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, (515) 294-8989
Mark Bryden, Mechanical Engineering, (515) 294-3891
Mike Krapfl, News Service, (515) 294-4917
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The most realistic virtual reality room in the world
AMES, Iowa -- More than $4 million in equipment upgrades will shine 100 million pixels on Iowa State University's six-sided virtual reality room.
(image)C6 battlespace
(image caption)Jared Knutzon, an Iowa State University graduate student in human computer interaction, demonstrates how Iowa State's C6 virtual reality room can control the military's unmanned aerial vehicles.
That's twice the number of pixels lighting up any virtual reality room in the world and 16 times the pixels now projected on Iowa State's C6, a 10-foot by 10-foot virtual reality room that surrounds users with computer-generated 3-D images. That means the C6 will produce virtual reality at the world's highest resolution.
Iowa State's C6 opened in June 2000 as the country's first six-sided virtual reality room designed to immerse users in images and sound. The graphics and projection technology that made such immersion possible hasn't been updated since the C6 opened.
The difference between the equipment currently in the C6 and the updated technology to be installed this summer, "is like putting on your glasses in the morning," said James Oliver, the director of Iowa State's Virtual Reality Applications Center and a professor of mechanical engineering.
The new equipment -- a Hewlett-Packard computer featuring 96 graphics processing units, 24 Sony digital projectors, an eight-channel audio system and ultrasonic motion tracking technology -- will be installed by Fakespace Systems Inc. of Marshalltown. The project is supported by a U.S. Department of Defense appropriation through the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
The project began this spring with a prototype upgrade to one wall of the C6. The remainder of the work will continue throughout the summer. Oliver said the improved C6 will open in the fall. A grand opening celebration is being planned for the spring of 2007.
A better C6 will be good news for the Iowa State researchers who study virtual reality.
Chiu-Shui Chan, an Iowa State professor of architecture, has used the C6 to develop 3-D models of buildings, cities and workplaces. He's studying how virtual reality can be a tool to create a library of historical buildings, plan urban growth and test workplace efficiency.
(image)virtual Beijing
(image caption) A virtual model of the Xidan business district in Beijing can help city planners manage urban growth.
Chan said the upgrade will improve the visual realism and interactive speed of his virtual reality applications. And that will enhance the sense of place in his applications and the effectiveness of his research.
Chan said the C6's existing technology requires him to balance and sacrifice some of a project's size, speed, realism or human-computer interaction. "With the new system I won't have to worry about that," he said.
Eve Wurtele, an Iowa State professor of genetics, development and cell biology, working with Julie Dickerson, an Iowa State associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, has used the C6 to develop new ways to visualize data from as many as 22,000 genes. She's also developing a virtual cell project that shows cells in 3-D action to help students learn about photosynthesis and other aspects of cell biology.
Wurtele said the higher speeds and better pictures will be a boost for her research and teaching.
"This upgrade is fantastic for us," she said. "It's essential for our research."
Mark Bryden, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, has used virtual reality to develop engineering tools that he
The ISU press release does not mention it, but the new C6 will be driven by open source technologies such as VR Juggler, OpenSG, and of course, Linux.
Cache
Your missing a piece of this though.
Its in 3d.
Doing 3d is no big deal for a small screen when the viewer is in a fixed perspective, but when you ware walking around the room the images have to change to keep the proper 3d perspective. Doing all of that for a 6 sided room in high deffinition and on-the-fly takes some serious horse power.
(BTW, I was in it in 1999 when it was 4 sided (floor and 3 walls))
Actually, the CAVE room is a room inside a much larger room. Some space is saved by using mirrors and such to fold the optical path of the projectors, but sometimes this isn't desireable, as mirrors cause light loss (some of the light is absorbed by the mirrors - mirrors aren't 100% reflective). Things get really tricky if you are trying to project imagery on the top (ceiling) or bottom (floor) of the CAVE cubical...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
wireless mice designed for people giving powerpoint presentations are a nice cheap solution. E.g: http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/product listns/US/EN,crid=1999,categoryid=371
If you find one that's not wireless, it might be a whole lot cheaper.
Also I used to have a finger mouse I got for like 2 bucks that had a little trackball on top for the thumb with the mouse button as trigger, but lost it.
If you have some time and expertise, you can do some motion tracking with webcams. The lower the resolution, the faster, actually!
For software though I have no choice but to selfishly invite people to join the interreality project (http://interreality.org) which can't do a CAVE out of the box but could if you synced up several clients (one for each projector) -- not hard, we did it with an older version of our software.
If you're doing it on the cheap and only have three or four projectors, you don't need much of a cluster, just a three or four networked computers. Or, use two dualhead computers.
. asp
You'll have a small amount of lag in the syncronization (network + OS + application software) but with some tweaking of the OS network configuration, or using some insanely fast system rather than a network (shared memory backplane?), you might get it to a few ms?
If you want frame-by-frame synchronization you need some specialized equipment driving the projectors, stuff like this: http://www.es.com/products/image+generators/index
(Anyone making a homebrew CAVE want to try using http://interreality.org/ VOS software in it?)
Not a toy at all. As a CS ISU grad, and a friend of a researcher in the C6, I can attest that this has more uses than a toy. For instance, John Deere has used this to model new virtual cockpits for upcoming tractors. They can see if all controls are within reach and in reasonably intuitive places. If they aren't, they can change their positioning using a wand to grab them and move them. It has (or plans to) also been used with other caves to collaboratively develop models and see them work, such as a model of an engine.
It is quite an impressive feat. You can pick, grab, and move things around just like they are right in front of you. It is more than just 6 flat panels. You also wear lcd shutter glasses and make those 6 panels turn 3D. So when reaching out to grab things they are exactly where you would expect them to be.
However, it CAN be used as a toy even though that isn't it's primary purpose... I have also seen Quake played in the C4 (precursor to C6). Pretty cool to say the least.
Don't put advice in your sig.