MFA Graduate, 2004

Brenda Lopez Silva

Interim Director, EVL/STRC 2020-2024 (retired) Director of Research, EVL 2014-2024 (retired) Professor Emeritus, Computer Science

Andrew Johnson

EVL Faculty (retired) Professor Emeritus, Computer Science

Robert V. Kenyon

EVL Faculty Associate Professor Emeritus, Computer Science

Tom Moher

Manager System Services, 1994 - 2005

Greg Dawe

MS Graduate, 1998

Darren Thompson

Senior Research Scientist

Jonas Talandis

PhD Graduate, 2001

Craig Barnes

Former MS Candidate

Michael Bogucki

MFA Graduate, 2003

Beth Cerny Patino

MS Graduate, 2001

Naveen Krishnaprasad

MS Graduate, 1997,  PhD Graduate, 2003

Kyoung Shin Park

Vivek Rajan

MS Graduate, 2000

Nikita Sawant

MS Graduate, 2005

Chris Scharver

PhD Graduate, 2003

Karl Timm

MS Graduate, 1997

Michelle Afenya

PhD Graduate, 1998

Marek Czernuszenko

Former PhD Candidate

Ivan Judson

Director, EVL EVL Faculty Professor, Computer Science MS Graduate, 1994

Michael E. Papka

MS Graduate

Bill Reynolds

MS &amp; MFA Graduate, 1997 (CS &amp; EV)

Maria Roussou

Paul Schneider

MS Graduate, 2003

Atul Nayak

MS Graduate, 2003, Systems Administrator - Center for Virtual Reality in the Arts (CVRA)

Allan Spale

MS Graduate, 2002

Dave Haas

MS Graduate, 2004

Janet Kim

PhD Graduate, 2007

Alex Hill

Former MFA Candidate

Damin Keenan

Vikas Chowdry

Jung-Min Lee

Former Undergraduate REU, Web Development

Elisa Green

Visiting Scholar &amp; Associate Professor, Dept. of Info. &amp; Sys. Eng., Chuo Univ.

Mitsunori Makino

Former EVL REU, IIT Graduate

Chris Rosenthal

MFA Graduate, 2006

HyeYun Park

Corbin Frame

Romeu Bessa

PhD Graduate, 2013 MFA Graduate, 2006

Sangyoon Lee

Former MCS Undergraduate REU

Gideon Goldman

Saleha Rizvi

PhD Graduate, 2011

Ratko Jagodic

PhD Graduate, Spring 2008

Xun Luo

Visting Research Scholar

Yi Chen

MFA Graduate, 2009

Paige Treebridge

Lindsay Grace

PhD Graduate, 2014

Hyejung Hur

MS Graduate, 2008

Darshan Bhatt

PhD Graduate, 2012

Yiwen Sun

MS Graduate, Learning Technologies Group

Brian Uphoff

PhD Graduate, 2011 MS Graduate, 2010

Marco Bernasconi

Shriram Iyer

Visiting MS Graduate Student, Istituto Politecnico di Milano (Italy)

Filippo Galgani

Research Experience Undergraduate

Katie Cruppenink

MS Graduate, 2011

Ed Kahler

MFA Graduate, 2010 MS Graduate, 2008

Arunan Rabindran

Graduate, Communication 2010

Gordon Carlson

PhD Graduate, 2023 MS Graduate, 2014

Arthur Nishimoto

Jenny Kinahan

Research Experience Undergraduate, 2009-2012

Jakub Misterka

Research Experience Undergraduate, 2010-2011

Todd Richard Silvia

Karan Chakrapani

Research Experience Undergraduate, 2011

Naomi Yarin

PhD Graduate, 2018

Victor Mateevitsi

MS Graduate, 2013

Qin Li

MS Graduate, 2012

Paul Grenning

Steve Conner

MS Graduate, 2103

Brent Grossman

Vaibhav Govilkar

PhD Graduate Student, 2014-2016

Paul Murray

EVL&rsquo;s exhibit at Supercomputing &rsquo;93 focused upon experiential science in the CAVE Virtual Reality Theater. Applications demonstrations included Astrophysics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Math, Meteorology and Genetic Programming. Applications were run in one or two modes: locally on the SGI/CAVE and/or distributed between the CM-5 and the SGI/CAVE. 

In local mode, CAVE participants explore pre-computed datasets. In distributed computing mode, participants may interactively steer their simulation codes on the CM-5. This ability enables CAVE users to explore and experiment with visualizations of pre-computed datasets, identify an area they want to enhance, and then invoke simulation codes on the networked supercomputer to compute new datasets. The CM-5 generates new data, which is then transferred to the SGI workstations for rendering and display in the CAVE. 

Scientific simulation codes are typically large and complex, and require HPCC resources - massively parallel processors, vector processors, massive datastores, large memories, or high-speed networks - to run efficiently. Depending on the datasets and type of analysis the scientists want to do, they set up their simulation codes to calculate greater detail, a different time step, or a different state defined by new parameters. In some instances, codes can be executed locally but take longer to run, so supercomputers are used to provide faster interaction. 

CAVE experiences enable researchers to interactively explore their scientific domains, play &ldquo;what if&rdquo; games by modifying their codes, and view the resulting visualizations in close-to-real-time. Virtual reality is recognized as an intelligent user interface to the emerging National Information Infrastructure, that will enable computational scientists and engineers to access HPCC enabling technologies and that will put the human in the loop for timely data analysis and understanding.

Supercomputing &rsquo;93

EVLers presented the following papers at the IEEE Virtual Reality &rsquo;99 Conference:
<ul>
<li>Andy Johnson - &ldquo;The Round Earth Project: Deep Learning in a Collaborative Virtual World&rdquo;, Johnson, A., Moher, T., Ohlsson, S., Gillingham, M.</li>
<li>Jason Leigh - &ldquo;A Review of Tele-Immersive Applications in the CAVE Research Network&rdquo;, Leigh, J., Johnson, A., DeFanti, T., et al.</li>
<li>Robert Kenyon - &ldquo;Effects of Network Characteristics on Human Performance in a Collaborative Virtual Environment&rdquo;, Park, K., Kenyon, R.</li>
<li> Tomoko Imai - &ldquo;TheVirtual Mail System&rdquo; (poster)</li>
</ul>

IEEE Virtual Reality &rsquo;99

EVL&rsquo;s latest research on projection-based VR technologies and device development was presented at IPT &rsquo;99; &ldquo;The ImmersaDesk3 -Experiences with a Flat Panel Display for Virtual Reality&rdquo;, Pape, D., Anstey, J., Bogucki, M., Dawe, G., DeFanti, T., Johnson, A., Sandin, D., was presented by Dave Pape at the workshop. 

Maria Roussou, a graduate of EVL and currently VR Coordinator at the Foundation of the Hellenic World in Athen, Greece, presented the paper, &ldquo;Incorporating Immersive Projection-based VR in Public Spaces.&rdquo;

Third International Immersive Projection Technology Workshop

Daniel J. Sandin (Co-Director, EVL) and Mary Rassmussen (Co-Director, <a href="http://www.sbhis.uic.edu/vrml/">VRMedLab</a> and EVL alumni) presented the plenary talk, &ldquo;Virtual Reality Demands Radical Human-Computer Interfaces&rdquo; at the First Australian User Interface Conference, part of the Australian Computer Science Week (ACSW2k). The theme of this event is &ldquo;Stepping out of Windows&rdquo;, moving from desktop computing environments that have dominated the 90&rsquo;s. 

Virtual Reality (VR) can be viewed as a significant improvement in the human-computer interface because it supports more perceptual channels and begs for more direct control of the computer system than the standard computer interface. These factors make VR an excellent platform for experimentation with new human-computer interfaces. 

VR systems support 3-dimensional graphics, wide angle of view, stereovision, and viewer-centered perspective. In many VR systems the participant is not seated and is free to walk about and gesture broadly. These features make a computer system, which is closer to a workshop, an operating room, or a national park than it is to a desk in an office. This perspective allows freedom in the creation of human-computer interfaces that is not afforded by the current standard interfaces. 

Research at EVL, in collaboration with the VRMedLab, is being focused on Tele-Immersion, a combination of tele-conferencing and VR. In this case the computer interface not only involves human and computer interaction, but human-to-human interface issues. The AUIC presentation focused on Tele-Immersive clinical and educational medical applications.

EVLers at AUIC

The following papers were presented by EVL faculty and students at the IPT Conference.
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Deploying VR in an Elementary School - Pipe Dreams and Practical Realities.&rdquo; (Johnson)</li>
<li>&ldquo;Developing the PARIS: Using the CAVE to Prototype a New VR Display.&rdquo; (Johnson, Sandin, DeFanti, Dawe, Pape, Qiu, Thongrong, Plepys)</li>
<li>&ldquo;Exploiting Multiple Perspectives in Tele-Immersion&rdquo; (Park, Kapoor, Scharver, Leigh)</li>
<li>&ldquo;The Tele-immersive Data Explorer: A Distributed Architecture for Collaborative Interactive Visualization of Large Data-sets.&rdquo; (Sawant, Scharver, Leigh, Johnson)</li>
<li>&ldquo;Video-Based Measurement of System Latency.&rdquo; (He, Liu, Pape, Dawe, Sandin)</li>
</ul>

Immersive Projection Technology Workshop (IPTW) 2000

Kyoung Park presents the paper entitled, &ldquo;Lessons Learned from Employing Multiple Perspectives in a Collaborative Virtual Environment for Visualizing Scientific Data&rdquo;.

EVLer at CVE2000

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was named a recipient of the National Science Foundation&rsquo;s new Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) program. Their award winning proposal, the National Computational Science Alliance, calls for the creation of a partnership of centers of excellence, hereafter called the &ldquo;Alliance&rdquo;, to prototype a computational infrastructure for the Nation for the 21st century. EVL is an Alliance partner and will work with other institutions to further develop collaborative tele-immersive virtual reality tool, techniques and methodologies.

National Computational Science Alliance

EVL has installed an ImmersaDesk in the Abraham Lincoln Elementary school as a continuation of research into the use of virtual reality and tele-immersion in education. The ImmersaDesk will be a fixture at the school for the next two or three years. 

Students at Lincoln will continue to take part in the Round Earth project - which investigates how virtual reality technology can be used to help teach concepts that are counter-intuitive to a learner&rsquo;s currently held mental model. 

EVL researchers are also developing new projects for the school, including Correlations - an investigation into the effectiveness of virtual environments as simulated data collection environments for children engaged in inquiry-based science learning activities, and the QuickWorlds project - which lets the teachers request 3D virtual models to enhance their existing curriculum.

Virtual Reality in Education News

At this conference Dan Sandin presented research on the Varrier auto-stereographic virtual reality display. The goal of this research is to develop a head-tracked, stereo virtual reality system utilizing plasma or LCD panels. This paper describes a head-tracked barrier auto-stereographic method that is optimized for real-time interactive virtual reality systems. In this method, a virtual barrier screen is created simulating the physical barrier screen, and placed in the virtual world in front of the projection plane. An off-axis perspective projection of this barrier screen, combined with the rest of the virtual world, is projected from at least two viewpoints corresponding to the eye positions of the head-tracked viewer. During the rendering process, the simulated barrier screen effectively casts shadows on the projection plane. Since the different projection points cast shadows at different angles, the different viewpoints are spatially separated on the projection plane. These spatially separated images are projected into the viewer&rsquo;s space at different angles by the physical barrier screen. 

The flexibility of this computational process allows more complicated barrier screens than the parallel opaque lines typically used in barrier strip auto-stereography. In addition, this method supports the focusing and steering of images for a user&rsquo;s given viewpoint, and allows for very wide angles of view. This method can produce an effective panel-based auto-stereo virtual reality system.

Traditional Method

SPIE Photonics West &rsquo;01

Andrew Johnson will attend IEEE VR 2001 to present the paper, &ldquo;Exploring Multiple Representations In Elementary School Science Education&rdquo;.

IEEE Virtual Reality 2001

Tom Moher will present the paper, &ldquo;First-Person Science Inquiry in Virtual Ambient Environments&rdquo; at CHI 2001. 

The annual CHI conference is the leading international forum for the exchange of ideas and information about human-computer interaction (HCI).

CHI 2001

At this year&rsquo;s 5th Immersive Projection Technology Workshop and 7th Eurographics Workshop on Virtual Environments, Tom Moher will present the paper, &ldquo;First Person Science Inquiry &lsquo;in the Field&rsquo;&rdquo; at the joint IPT and EGVE Workshop.

5th Immersive Projection Technology Workshop and 7th Eurographics Workshop on Virtual Environments

The goal of the ASCI Advanced Projector Workshop was to develop a white paper and roadmap for the accelerated development of next-generation projection technology. At the conclusion of the meeting, however, it was determined that attendees had specific interests or needs and that there was no universal solution possible. It was decided that future meetings would be necessary to create group consensus on future projector requirements and to prioritize concerns. In addition, since some of the requirements were high-risk and/or focused on narrow user communities, attendees were encouraged to seek alternate solutions.

ASCI Advanced Projector Workshop

Started in 1998, the biennial iGrid (International Grid) event showcases application advancements and middleware innovations enabled by globally connected, high-performance networks. This year, iGrid 2002 challenges scientists and technologists to optimally utilize 10Gbps experimental networks, with special emphasis on e-Science, Grid and Virtual Laboratory applications. 

Grid and Virtual Laboratory technologies are crucial prerequisites to a future, flexible e-Science infrastructure. Grid computing is increasingly perceived as the main enabling technology for facilitating multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary collaborations, enabling researchers to share unique resources and to have uniform and ubiquitous access to these facilities. Grid technologies are enabling the development of Virtual Laboratories, or science portals, for distributed analysis in applied scientific research. Groups worldwide are collaborating on Virtual Laboratory / Grid research projects, creating experimental platforms upon which e-Science and large-scale distributed-computing experiments can take place. 

iGrid 2002 will showcase demonstrations of 10Gbps applications and will also hold two one-day Topical Meetings (Symposia), with invited keynote speakers on e-Science and Virtual Laboratory / Grid developments.

iGrid2002, The International Virtual Laboratory

EVLers are participatng in the Second GeoWall Summit held in Minneapolis convened by Paul Morin (University of Minnesota) and Jason Leigh (EVL). They will unveil new software developed for the AGAVE and discuss experiences with the use of this technology in the field of GeoSciences and in classroom teaching. 

Speakers: 
Andy Johnson: K-12 applications, Experiences from the classroom 
Atul Nayak: Immersaview - An Open Inventor viewer to interact with 3D content 
Jason Leigh: Volume Rendering on the AGAVE, Progress made in the graphics hardware 

Related links: 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave">www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave</a> 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave/immersaview">www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave/immersaview</a> 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/continuum">www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/continuum</a> 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/geowall">geowall.org</a>

Still from Summit

The GeoWall Summit

EVLer Atul Nayak and Paul Morin (University of Minnesota) are taking the AGAVE / GeoWall to the 14th Annual IRIS Workshop to show how the AGAVE can be used to visualize seismic activity. The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (<a href="http://www.iris.edu">IRIS</a>) is a university research consortium dedicated to exploring the Earth&rsquo;s interior through the collection and distribution of seismographic data. Support for IRIS comes from the National Science Foundation, other federal agencies, universities, and private foundations. 

Traditionally seismologists look at 2D X-Y plots of a timeseries of the displacement of a seismometer in the North-South, East-West and Up-Down directions. The 3D nature of the data is ideal for visualization on the AGAVE. Atul will use Immersaview to display data recorded by a network of seisometers spread across the world when an earthquake hit Turkey (August 17, 1999, Magnitude 7.6 Richter scale). 

At each of the 20-30 stations, you can see three wiggles and a particle zipping by rapidly. Each wiggle represents one of the three components of the seismicity - so the red wiggle is the displacement of the seismometer in the Up-Down direction, the green wiggle is the North-South displacement and the white wiggle is the motion in the East-West direction. The latest data is displayed at the location of the station and the previous samples gradually travel out along the three directions. A yellow particle moves around the station leaving behind a trace of the velocity of a particle in the Earth. This is significant because it is the first time seismologists can actually playback in stereo how the Earth moved at the station as the seismic waves hit it. 

Another event that will be demonstrated is the earthquake that struck Anza, Southern Calfornia (31 October 2001, Mag:5.1). The visualization includes a simultaneous display of the motion of a particle at more than 30 seismometers on the IRIS / USGS network. So seismologists can simply choose the event and stations that want to look at, pull data off the IRIS server and feed it to the program. 

Immersaview is software developed by the CAVERN group at EVL. It allows you to interact with 3D content on the AGAVE / GeoWall. 

Related links: 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave/immersaview">www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave/immersaview</a> 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave">www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave</a> 
<a href="http://www.iris.edu">www.iris.edu</a> 
<a href="http://geowall.org">geowall.org</a>

Fourteenth Annual IRIS Workshop

signal-to-noise ratio: [from analog electronics] n. Used by hackers in a generalization of its technical meaning. &lsquo;Signal&rsquo; refers to useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and &lsquo;noise&rsquo; to anything else on that medium. 

This exhibition by <a href="http://www.sine.org">sine::apsis experiments</a> explores a contemporary fascination with the virtues of noise and the validity of signal. We live in an era where people are tuned into an infinitely splintering array of frequencies (e.g. visual, auditory, pure data, etc.). Science, human curiosity, and cheap digital technology press us into an obsessive recording of every modulation of our life experience. Between those persons monitoring seismic activity to those recording data flows across the Internet to even those at home with a video camera, there is a mind-boggling quantity of raw data generated each minute of the day. And, thanks to digital technology, all of it may be easily stored for reproduction and mining at any time. 

This exhibition focuses on current tendencies in how we put a value to this data. How much of the data we generate is true signal and how much of it is pure noise? All told, this exhibition shows how one person&rsquo;s signal can be another person&rsquo;s noise and vice versa. Appropriately, the works included in this exhibition explore this valuation phenomenon from many different angles. Some art works point to our society&rsquo;s dogged quest for signal as a shortsighted endeavor. The word signal here could be substituted by either meaning or truth - in other words, data with a tangible commodity value. 

Sabrina Raaf&rsquo;s &ldquo;Saturday&rdquo; forms a uniquely intimate portrait of the community of Humboldt Park, Chicago, through a composite presentation of conversations stolen on Saturdays in the park. Todd Margolis&rsquo;s piece entitled &ldquo;Please Adjust&rdquo; allows participants to manipulate images on a television monitor to create their own aesthetic ranging from minimal &lsquo;signal&rsquo; to chaotic &lsquo;noise&rsquo;. 

This exhibition runs concurrently at Artswatch: plugANDplay, June 28th-August 3rd. 

sine::apsis experiments members: Kevin Heisner, Daniel Miller, Fernando Orellana, Amy Youngs, Valerie Fuchs, Sabrina Raaf, Andrea Polli, Todd Margolis 
 
Invited artists include: Ben Chang, Thomas DeLisle, Russel Hulsey, Keenan Lawler, Jamie Tittle,Trevor Paglen, Silvia Ruzanka, Chris Sorg, Dmitry Stakovsky 

text courtesy Artswatch, in partnership with Swanson Cralle

Signal to Noise

&ldquo;plugANDplay&rdquo; is an exhibition which pushes the limits and vagaries of an electronically overwhelmed culture. Each piece is to be simply plugged in and played. 

EVLers and <a href="http://www.sine.org">sine::apsis experiments</a> members Todd Margolis and Fernando Orellana showcase their work in this exhibition, which runs concurrently at Swanson Cralle: S:N (signal to noise), June 28th-August 10th. 

Todd Margolis 
man+machine, (3) 8.5&rsquo; x 11&rsquo; light boxes 
A series of ImmersaGrams that explore the potentialities of incorporating machine technology into the human body. These images appear similar to 3D X-Rays and present the viewer with a cyborg / human entity. 

Fernando Orellana 
S.R.A v. 1.0 - 1.5 (superfluously redundant analysis) 15&rsquo; x 15&rsquo; 

sine::apsis experiments members: Kevin Heisner, Daniel Miller, Fernando Orellana, Amy Youngs, Valerie Fuchs, Sabrina Raaf, Andrea Polli, Todd Margolis 

Invited artists include: Ben Chang, Thomas DeLisle, Russel Hulsey, Keenan Lawler, Jamie Tittle, Trevor Paglen, Silvia Ruzanka, Chris Sorg, Dmitry Stakovsky

plugANDplay

EVLers, Todd Margolis, Tim Portlock, Geoffrey Allen Baum, and Keith Miller (Applied Interactives, N.F.P.) showcase their collective / collaborative virtual reality artwork &ldquo;Shared Spaces&rdquo;, in the Version>02 exhibition at the <a href="http://www.mcachicago.org">Museum of Contemporary Art</a> April 2002. 

The Shared Spaces Project is a collaborative virtual reality experience on a <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/research/template_res_project.php3?indi=228">VR Portal</a> installation system. Participants will be able to join into the virtual world through the VR Portal. Through the passage of time, the space evolves into a collective expression of the participants&rsquo; intentions. The virtual objects and activities in the space begin as pre-determined constructs by the artists and develop gradually based on user-input.

Version>02

EVLer&rsquo;s and Applied Interactives, N.F.P mebmers - Todd Margolis, Tim Portlaock, Geoffrey Allen Baum and Keith Miller present their virtual reality artwork via the VR Portal at the Who? Exhibition in Indianapolis, IN.

Shared Spaces Debuts at the Who? Exhibition

The Northwestern Univerisity&rsquo;s Center for Art &amp; Technology hosts the Second Annual Symposium: Art, Technology and Spirituality which features exhibitions, concerts, screenings and presentations by artists, musicians, and scholars. 

Included in this year&rsquo;s event is Shared Spaces, a collaborative virtual reality installation designed to bring participants together in a mutually meaningful convergence. Participants will be able to meet in the architectural portal called Confluxus. This is the beginning point from which participants are encouraged to move to one of the three virtual project rooms, each created by different artists: Infinite Studio by Todd Margolis, Super Spectacular by Tim Portlock, and Syn.aesthetic by Geoffrey Baum and Keith Miller.

Shared Spaces Exhibited at NWU&rsquo;s 2nd Annual Art &amp; Technology Symposium

.:/dev/liquidon/show 

info::{ 
produced by::joseph tremonti 
date::wednesday july 10, 2002 
reception::8:30 pm 
performance::9:00 pm 
duration::1.0 hrs} 

venue::{ 
Peter Jones Gallery 
1806 W. Cuyler 
Chicago, IL 60613 
773.472.6725} 

description::{ 
liquidon is an immersive, realtime, audio-visual composition that explores the field of itc. itc, an acronym for instrumental transcommunication, is a field of research pertaining to the use of technological apparatus to facilitate communication with the dead. liquidon incorporates stereoscopic projection and an interactive, multi-channel soundscape.} 

bio::{ 
Joseph Tremonti is an artist working in the field of virtual reality. He received a BFA in 3D computer animation from the University of Georgia in 1999 and is currently pursuing his MFA at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago. His work deals with realtime computer generated environments, tele-immersion, and spatialized audio. His virtual reality environments have been exhibited internationally, including the NTT InterCommunication Center Tokyo, Japan, Ars Electronica Center Linz, Austria, and the C3 Center for Culture &amp; Communication, Budapest, Hungary.}

liquidon 458

liquidon

EVLers Jason Leigh, Andrew Johnson and Atul Nayak are presenting Wiggleview at the American Geophysical Union 2002 Fall Meeting. Using the AGAVE / GeoWall, the Wiggleview version exhibited in the IRIS booth at AGU will display real-time seismic data retrieved from the CORBA server in Seattle, Washington. The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (<a href="http://www.iris.edu">IRIS</a>) is a university research consortium dedicated to exploring the Earth&rsquo;s interior through the collection and distribution of seismographic data. Support for IRIS comes from the National Science Foundation, other federal agencies, universities, and private foundations. 

Wiggleview is a tool developed by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) for visualizing seismic data. Data for seismic events is obtained from repositories maintained by IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) at the Data Management Center (DMC) in Seattle, Washington. 

The Wiggleview visualizations consist of a topographical map and 2D North / South (green lines), East / West (white lines) and vertical (pink lines) seismic traces recorded at each station in a worldwide network of seismometers. In addition, yellow 3D particle traces integrate the three components, and depict the actual tremors occurring at the instance of an event. 

The tool&rsquo;s strength lies in being able to depict as many as 60 channels of waveforms and 20 traces of particle motion on a single display. This allows one to watch the seismic wave field expand about a source and see how it differs from place to place. It can also assist in understanding surface wave multipathing and anisotropy. The 3D nature of the images enhances depth perception, thus allowing a better understanding of attenuation due to distance and earth structure, source directivity and seismic hazard estimation. 

Related links: 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/atul/wiggleview">www.evl.uic.edu/atul/wiggleview</a> 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave/immersaview">www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave/immersaview</a> 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave">www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/agave</a> 
<a href="http://www.iris.edu">www.iris.edu</a> 
<a href="http://geowall.org">geowall.org</a>

Wiggleview Demonstrated at AGU2002

EVL PhD Student Karl Timm&rsquo;s Real-Time Video View Morphing research has been accepted for presentation in the SIGGRAPH 2003 Sketches and Applications program. 

Real-Time Video View Morphing is a real-time virtual video camera application based on view morphing. This system takes video input from multiple cameras aimed at the same subject from different angles. After performing real-time pattern matching, the system generates synthetic views for a virtual camera that can pan between any two real views. The approach of this paper differs from the more common &ldquo;depth from stereo&rdquo; method for generating virtual views in that it does not attempt to reconstruct the 3D structure of the original scene. Instead it takes two 2D images and directly generates the 2D output by performing only planar operations. At the heart of the system are algorithms and data structures that support the fast inter-image correlation needed for the completely automated, real-time view morphing.

Extended MIP-MAP

Real-Time Video View Morphing Presented at SIGGRAPH 2003

EVL Associate Professor, Jason Leigh introduces video game design and programming to the UIC Computer Science curriculum Fall 2003 semester. The course will focus upon the theory and practice of one of the most challenging disciplines in Computer Science, combining in real-time - computer graphics, human computer interaction, networking, artificial intelligence, computer-aided instruction, computer architecture, and databases; all forming the foundation for video games and their development. Computer science majors and artists alike are encouraged to take part in this exciting learning experience.

Introduction to Video Game Design and Programming

Amplified Collaboration Environments (ACEs) are integrated ubiquitous tools and environments that support collaborative scientific investigation using advanced computation and visualization technologies. ACE, such as the Continuum, adapt information to be optimally displayed using a variety of technologies such as multi-site video conferencing, interactive stereoscopic computer graphics, and high-resolution tiled displays backed by clusters of PCs connected over multi gigabit networks. The goal of this research is to enhance collaboration among distantly located teams of experts gathered to intensively solve problems. Human factors study over ACEs is intended to understand interaction among distributed teams of people working in the display-rich environments. An exploratory design study was conducted to evaluate how small groups of people in distributed Continuum spaces perform an information discovery and knowledge crystallization tasks using varying technology configurations. The goal of this design study was to explore design issues to enhance collaboration in ACEs and to provide guidance to designers and facilitators of ACEs. 

This dissertation describes the design concept of ACEs, the findings from user study, and the analysis of shared workspace model for ACEs.

Kyoung Shin Park&rsquo;s PhD Thesis Defense

Franz Fischnaller, creator of the virtual reality and high-speed networking project <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/research/res_project.php3?indi=230">CityCluster</a> - &ldquo;From the Renaissance to the Megabyte Networking Age&rdquo;, will be presenting his work at VSMM2003. 

This year marks the ninth edition of the VSMM Conference, which continues to push the boundaries of Virtual Reality and Multimedia research with the theme &ldquo;Hybrid Realities: Art, Technology, and the Human Factor&rdquo;. VSMM 2003 is being held for the first time in Canada, in the cosmopolitan City of Montreal. This year&rsquo;s conference will combine some popular sessions from past conferences with current fields of special interest, adding a special focus on the human factor. Hexagram, the Institute for Research and Creation in Media Arts and Technologies, is hosting VSMM2003 which will take place in the Science Center of Montreal, in the historic Old Port of Montreal.

CityCluster

CityCluster at VSMM03

This dissertation describes a virtual world builder, called CLOVES (Construction of Layer Oriented Virtual Environment for Science inquiry learning). CLOVES focuses on enabling world designers to create data-rich virtual reality environments and simulated instruments for helping children&rsquo;s science inquiry learning. 

CLOVES serves as a medium for collaborative design among educators, programmers, and modelers by simplifying the collaborative design process model based on the articulation of hierarchical design responsibilities among potential world designers. CLOVES new design process model is also developed to increase the designers shared understanding of the construction process. 

A case study was conducted to evaluate CLOVES features and find out whether it works out as a collaborative medium. In addition to several improvements made to CLOVES, designers actually built a virtual world with the tool. The study also showed that the teacher participated in the study was able to establish the common ground shared understanding of the development process. 

Phd Thesis Committee: Advisor of Yongjoo Cho and Associate Professor <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/directory/dir_person.php3?indi=22">Tom Moher</a>, Director of EVL <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/directory/dir_person.php3?indi=10">Thomas DeFanti</a>, Assistant Professor <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/directory/dir_person.php3?indi=16">Andrew Johnson</a>, Associate Professor <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/directory/dir_person.php3?indi=29">Jason Leigh</a> and Joshua Radinsky from the Education Department.

Yongjoo Cho&rsquo;s PhD Thesis Defense

Those who attended the exhibition of VROOM at the proceedings of Siggraph &rsquo;94, experienced the possibilities of scientific visualization in computational science and engineering with emphasis on interactive, collaborative problem-solving. Virtual environments enabled participants to view, enter and interact with massive datasets. They could become smaller than an atom or larger than the universe; stand in the middle of a thunderstorm or travel through the human bloodstream. 

Over 40 projects were exhibited during four days of demonstrations, involving more than 200 researchers. The demonstrations used CAVE and BOOM technologies, transmitted over local high-speed networks, using massive datastores, superworkstations, supercomputers, and scientific instrumentation. The primary goal of VROOM was to encourage the development of teams, tools, hardware, system software, and human interface models. New interaction paradigms for virtual environments, tuned to science and engineering emerged. 

Attendees gained a vision of the 90&rsquo;s scientific &ldquo;cyberworkspace&rdquo;. VR experiences enable researchers to interactively explore their scientific domains, play &ldquo;what if&rdquo; games by modifying their codes, and view the resulting visualizations. VR is recognized as an &ldquo;intelligent user interface&rdquo; to the emerging National Information Infrastructure, that will enable computational scientists and engineers to access HPCC enabling technologies and put the &ldquo;human in the loop&rdquo; for timely data analysis and understanding. 

Additional EVL applications are as follows (also see &lsquo;related research&rsquo; links below): 
CitySpace 
Computational Modeling for Crash-Worthiness 
Simulation of a Grinding Process 
Visualization of Casting Process 
Using VR for Machine Design 
Scientific Visualization of Gyrofluid Tokamak Turbulence 
Getting Physical in Four Dimensions 
Topological Surface Deformation 
Detour 
The Virtual Eye 
Weakly Electric Fish Electric Organ Discharge 
JASON Interactive Mapper 
Post-Euclidean Walkabout

VROOM - The Virtual Reality Room :: Exhibition at Siggraph

EVL&rsquo;s Luc Renambot is attending the WACE 2004 Workshop in Nice, France, to give a presentation on <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/sage">SAGE: the Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment</a>. He served as a WACE 2004 Workshop program committee member, along with EVL&rsquo;s Jason Leigh and Andrew Johnson. 

The 4th Workshop on Advanced Collaborative Environments (WACE 2004) will address research, technological and social issues of developing persistent collaboration infrastructure to address the needs of emerging scientific communities. The goal of the workshop is to provide an open technical forum to promote the discussion of high-end, high-value solutions to the problem of supporting distributed scientific collaboration.

EVL Participates in the WACE 2004 Workshop

EVL has just announced the release of the 35 Panel Cylindrical Varrier&trade; Autostereo Display prototype. 

The Cylindrical Varrier&trade; display is a head-tracked autostereo virtual reality display that eliminates the need to wear special glasses to see the stereoscopic image. The prototype consists of 35 LCD panels tiled in a 7x5 configuration with a 6&rsquo;x8&rsquo; footprint. A photographic film barrier screen affixed to a glass panel is mounted to the front of each of the 21&rdquo; LCD panels. 

For more information on the new 35 Panel Cylindrical Varrier&trade; Autostereo Display technology, please visit the following link: 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/rg/20040820_dan">www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/rg/20040820_dan</a>

The 35 Panel Cylindrical Varrier&trade; Autostereo Display Prototype

EVL&rsquo;s 35 Panel Cylindrical Varrier&trade; Autostereo Display Prototype

Human Factors

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