Established in 1973, the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) is an interdisciplinary research laboratory in the UIC College of Engineering’s Computer Science department. EVL specializes in collaborative visualization, virtual reality, visual data science, and advanced computing and networking infrastructure. EVL enables scientists and engineers to uniquely manage the scale and complexity of their data - to create information visualizations of multidimensional and multivariate data, explore 3D immersive worlds, juxtapose related yet heterogeneous 2D and 3D datasets, access computer infrastructure for machine learning, and move large datasets over high-speed networks - thereby using advanced tools and technologies to access, display, share and interact with their data and glean insight and knowledge.

EVL has always looked 10-15 years into the future, and has a legacy of past successes. In the ’70s, the Lab pioneered real-time interactive graphics and videogame technology; in the ’80s, it began focusing on scientific visualization; in the ’90s, it focused on advanced virtual reality, and on high-speed networking infrastructure; and, in the ’00s, on accessing, sharing and displaying ultra-high-resolution images on tiled display walls. EVL’s best-known inventions include the CAVE™ virtual-reality environment, the ImmersaDesk™, OptIPortal, and the SAGE™ scalable adaptive graphics environment, and the Continuum Collaborative Smart Space; EVL’s key networking initiative is StarLight.

In the ’10s, EVL is building on its decades of experience to create new hardware and software technologies, notably the CAVE2™ hybrid-reality environment, the SAGE2™ scalable amplified group environment, and the SAGE3™ smart amplified group environment,and with the addition of new faculty, is expanding the breadth and depth of its expertise in scientific visualization, information visualization and visual analytics.

From EVL’s early collaborations with artists to today’s global collaborations with computational scientists and application scientists in academia, government and industry, EVL has had many successes developing, nurturing and growing user communities. To fulfill its mission of enabling scientific discovery, EVL faculty, staff and students form interdisciplinary teams of computer scientists, application scientists and artists in order to create useful and usable visualization and virtual-reality tools and techniques connected to remote data stores and distant colleagues via high-speed networks.

EVL maintains a distinguished publication record, with students, faculty and staff publishing in major journals and conferences worldwide.

EVL is supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) awards CNS-2320261, CCF-2316157, OAC-2003800; the National Institutes of Health (NIH) award R01CA258827, Department of Energy awards DE-SC0023524, DE-SC0024271. The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) also receives funding from Argonne National Laboratory, The Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation, the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Procter & Gamble, the State of Illinois, and UIC. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies and companies.

SAGE / SAGE2 / SAGE3 / CAVE / CAVE2 are trademarks of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.