Immersive environments and applications to visualisation

In this seminar I will discuss a number of engaging environments I have designed or have been involved in that have been used for scientific visualisation by a range of people from science researchers to the general public. The discussion will include the Virtual Room (Melbourne Museum), the AVIE at iCInema UNSW, and hemispherical domes such as planetariums and other spherical arrangements. This will include a discussion of a new approach to projection into surround displays. In general these environments engage either or both of the two characteristics of our visual system not normally stimulated by traditional 2D displays such as monitors, namely stereoscopy and peripheral vision. Many of the systems have been designed for a more modest budget and made up out of commodity components rather than buying in off-the-shelf products with their generally high price tags. The discussion will include the technical details of the hardware, the software and content development issues, applications to visualisation, and touch upon some future projects.

3D geology surfaces (courtesy Klaus Gessner) on the local 3x2 tiled display, each panel SXGA+ for a total of 4200 x 2160 pixels.