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Visualizing Data Inside the 30-ft Allosphere
TEDChris writes "The Allosphere, being created at UC Santa Barbara, is the most ambitious attempt yet at creating powerful 3d visualizations of raw scientific data, such as the structure of a crystal, or how quantum effects take place. Researchers watch from a bridge inside the 30-foot sphere, looking at data projected 360 degrees around them and listening to 3D sound. The first major public demo of the facility has just been posted at TED.com. Optimists would argue that many of the greatest scientific breakthroughs happened through a new visual way of imagining data. Penicillin and relativity come to mind. So this is either a killer new research vehicle, an incredible toy, or just an insanely expensive art project."
Seems like it's nothing more than 2 IMAX theaters tied together?
So it is just two CAVEs stuck together? Yup, real advanced technology there.
I hope nobody tells them about head-mounted displays.
Really? From what I recall, penicillin was discovered by noticing that mould contaminating a bacteria sample caused the bacteria to die, and relativity came straight out of the mathematics (you can derive special relativity in about one sheet of A4 - general relativity is much harder). Is there some story that everyone except me knows about?
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Honestly, it seems rather useless (in these examples). I won't knock music in general, but does a computer singing a song really going to be helpful in diagnosing something? Just because you have more information, doesn't mean you have any higher level of useful information.
I will give the presenter props though. That was like a Science Word Bingo caller going for blackout.
No, it is far easier to turn your head than to calculate and rotate an image, especially if you have more than one person that you're displaying for.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Not exactly a new concept, just new in that somebody actually built one.
This kind of thing has been in Sci-fi for ages, everything from Star Trek to X-Men.