EVL Faculty, emeritus Associate Professor, School of Art &amp; Design

Drew Browning

Manager System Services, 1994 - 2005

Greg Dawe

MS Graduate, 1998

Darren Thompson

Senior Research Scientist

Jonas Talandis

Former MS Candidate

Michael Bogucki

MA Graduate, 1997

Jim Costigan

Research Assistant Professor (Bioengineering) PhD Graduate, 2010 MS Graduate (Computer Science &amp; Industrial Engineering)

Cristian J. Luciano

MFA Graduate, 2006

HyeYun Park

PhD Graduate, 2012

Yiwen Sun

Research Experience Undergraduate

Katie Cruppenink

Research Specialist, 2011-2013 MFA Graduate, 2011

JD Pirtle

MS Graduate, 2103

Vaibhav Govilkar

The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) participation in the Supercomputing &rsquo;97 Conference marked the first large-scale tele-immersive experiment between multiple remote sites and the SC&rsquo;97 Research Exhibits. 

Jason Leigh and Andy Johnson presented the research paper Issues in the Design of a Flexible Distributed Architecture for Supporting Persistence and Interoperability in Collaborative Virtual Environments. This was one of the first published papers on Tele-immersion and the CAVE Research Network (CAVERN). The research presented in this paper was supported by the multi-way collaborative demonstration of the NICE application at the National Computational Science Alliance booth. Between 15 and 20 users from I-Desks, CAVES and workstations in San Jose, and at remote sites, simultaneously and successfully inhabited the NICE environment. 

Also exhibited was a rapid prototyping application using CAVERN - between the Alliance, Argonne, and the Laboratory for Advanced Computing research booths, demonstrating VR and very large databases. General Motors&rsquo; VisualEyes application demonstrated how GM designers import 3D CAD models into the CAVE for quick visual inspection and design reviews. 

The Virtual Temporal Bone, a virtual reality simulation of the intricate anatomy of the middle and inner ear was also demonstrated to show the latest in networked educational systems. This type of virtual reality application will soon be a vital part of the training of resident surgeons of otolaryngology. The application was developed at the Virtual Reality in Medicine Laboratory, School of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences, College of Associated Health Professions, University of Illinois at Chicago, in collaboration with the Department of Otolaryngology, College of Medicine, and EVL.

Supercomputing &rsquo;97

The National Computational Science Alliance <a href="http://access.ncsa.uiuc.edu/index.alliance.html">(Alliance)</a> is a partnership among computational scientists, computer scientists, and professionals in education, outreach, and training at more than 50 U.S. universities
and research institutions working to prototype the computational and information infrastructure of the next
century. 

EVL, as a partner of the National Computational Science Alliance, participated in its annual meeting held at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Assembly Hall. The meeting&rsquo;s research exhibition included demonstrations run on ten ImmersaDesks. Andy Johnson and Jason Leigh gave a tutorial on <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern">CAVERN</a>. 

EVL&rsquo;s VR demonstrations included: 
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;PartnerBall&rdquo; - A Dual View ImmersaDesk (Duodesk) Application (2 simultaneously tracked participants)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/~cave5d/homepage.html">Cave5D</a> using CAVERNsoft networking</li>
<li>Networked <a href="http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/VR/grants">Virtual Director</a></li>
<li>Tele-Immersive Design Review with General Motors</li>
<li>Caterpillar&rsquo;s Industrial Design Review networked to EVL / Chicago</li>
</ul>

Assembly Hall, UIUC

Alliance &rsquo;98

Randall C. Smith has  received the 1999 &ldquo;Boss&rdquo; Kettering Award from General Motors, the corporation&rsquo;s top technical honor. Smith has worked on VisualEyes, a system of integrated hardware, internally developed virtual reality software, and user interfaces, which is used to create stereoscopic, full-size, visually realistic displays of vehicles and components. VisualEyes is used throughout GM for vehicle design review, rapid prototyping, die and engineering analysis, and manufacturing validation.

Randy Smith Recognized / VisualEyes

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

The International Grid (iGrid) 2000 exhibit, jointly sponsored and organized by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the Office of the Vice President for Information Technology at Indiana University (IU), University of Tokyo and Keio University, provided global connectivity to collaborators from Canada, Germany, Greece, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, USA and the CERN institute. 

iGrid 2000 was composed of 24 application demonstrations requiring high-speed networks, with emphasis on distributed computing, tele-immersion, large datasets, remote instrumentation, collaboration, cultural heritage, digital video, streaming media and high-definition television. An additional 3 proposals represented video teleconferencing enhancements. 

EVL and IU, members of NCSA&rsquo;s National Computational Science Alliance partnership, are working to advance the development of the International Technology Grid. The Grid is a prototype 21st century computational and information infrastructure, integrating high-performance computers, visualization environments, remote instruments, and massive databases via high-speed networks to support advanced applications. iGrid 2000 was a direct outgrowth of these efforts.

The International Grid (iGrid) 2000

Pat Banerjee and Fred Dech of EVL&rsquo;s partner lab, the <a href="http://www_ivri.me.uic.edu/">Industrial Virtual Reality Institute (IVRI)</a> present a workshop on virtual prototyping, entitled &ldquo;Virtual Component Sourcing (Workshop D)&rdquo; with Sudkir Anatharaman and John Yan of the <a href="http://www.uic.edu/depts/enga/">UIC College of Engineering</a>.

Virtual Component Sourcing (Workshop D)

EVL will host U.S. <a href="http://www.senate.gov/~durbin/">Senator Dick Durbin</a> and members of the Illinois Congressional Delegation at UIC on Saturday, January 10, 1998. CAVE and ImmersaDesk technologies, advanced applications, and tele-immersion collaborative experiences will be demonstrated. 

This presentation is part of a forum, the Technology Leadership Workshop, organized by Senator Durbin to highlight some of the technologies being developed in Illinois that will take the U.S. into the future.

Technology Leadership Workshop

The Industrial Virtual Reality Symposium, hosted by the <a href="http://www.nist.gov/">National Institute of Standards and Technology</a> and the <a href="http://www_ivri.me.uic.edu/">Industrial Virtual Reality Institute</a> of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), was held November 1 and 2, 1999 at UIC. The event focused upon industrial applications and the adoption of virtual reality technology. 

How will virtual reality impact the way business develops and manages mechanical and industrial systems? Tele-collaboration, training, information management, product design and reengineering are only a few functional areas where this technology is finding its applications. 

How are research institutions an industries contributing to the evolution of the technology and its applications? Invited speakers, paper presentations, video presentations, research demonstrations, exhibits, workshops, and round table discussions will focus on the latest advances in software, hardware, and applications.

Industrial Virtual Reality Symposium 1999

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

EVL is proud to announce that Cristian Luciano is one of four recipiants of the 2004 Link Foundation Fellowship. He is the first student in the State of Illinois to be awarded the Foundation&rsquo;s fellowship. 

The Awardees for 2003-2004 
Cristian Luciano - University of Illinois - Chicago 
Jernej Barbic - Carnegie Mellon University 
Cali Fidopiastis - University of Central Florida 
Yiping Guo - University of Central Florida 

The Link Foundation awards up to five fellowships to qualified doctoral students in academic institutions per year, with each grant totaling $25,000. This program, in place since 1990, has awarded more than 60 fellowships - approximately $1.2 million - to qualifying doctoral students studying in the simulation and training field at U.S. universities. 

The Link Trainer, invented by Mr. Link in 1929, was the first successful flight simulator and truly a pioneer engineering effort that started a whole new field of endeavor. Simulation is on the brink of further major developments in many new fields where operators use complex systems. 

The Advanced Simulation &amp; Training Program was put in place by the foundation in 1990 and the first awards made in 1991. Grants of $25,000 are awarded by a selection committee to qualifying doctoral students. Through 2001 a total of 54 awards have been made. It is the intention of the Foundation to continue the program as the simulation and training field develops.

Cristian Luciano Awarded the Link Foundation Fellowship

Copyright University of Illinois Office of Public Affairs. 

University of Illinois at Chicago graduate student Cristian Luciano, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science, has been awarded one of four Advanced Simulation and Training Fellowships this year by the Link Foundation, named for the late Edwin and Marion Link. Edwin Link is best known for inventing the first successful flight simulator back in 1929. 

In the 13-year history of the fellowship, Luciano is the first student at an Illinois university to win one. The fellowship includes a grant of $25,000. 

Luciano, a native of Argentina, is working with researchers in the UIC College of Dentistry and in mechanical and industrial engineering and computer science departments to create a haptics-based dental procedure training simulator. The device will allow dental students to learn techniques in virtual environments displayed through haptics, or the sense of touch. Once perfected, this simulator should lessen the need for dental students to practice on mannequins, lab animals or human patients. 

&ldquo;This time-consuming teaching process requires much one-on-one instructor / student interaction,&rdquo; said Luciano. &ldquo;Simulation programs have greatly improved during the past few years with the introduction of new technologies such as haptics and robotics.&rdquo; 

Luciano is designing his simulator so that dental students can use a variety of virtual dental instruments to learn the feel of what&rsquo;s normal or abnormal when probing around teeth and gingival tissue. But the &ldquo;feeling&rdquo; will all be computer-generated. 

&ldquo;The student will be able to select and feel a variety of textures and apply them to a virtual object&rsquo;s surface,&rdquo; Luciano said. Specific textures can be applied to a root surface to simulate calculus, caries, restorative overhangs, soft tissue penetration, or a clean root surface. 

&ldquo;The student will depend entirely upon tactile sensation to learn what is being felt in real scenarios.&rdquo; 

Luciano&rsquo;s dental simulator is being planned for use on a device developed by UIC&rsquo;s Electronic Visualization Laboratory called the PARIS - an acronym for Personal Augmented Reality Immersive System. PARIS will allow dental students to both feel and view their virtual dental work with three-dimensional realism. 

&ldquo;Users are able to experience various touch sensations while using a probe in a virtual reality environment,&rdquo; said Pat Banerjee, professor of mechanical and industrial engineering and one of Luciano&rsquo;s advisers. 

Luciano also works with Tom De Fanti, distinguished professor of computer science and director of the EVL. 

&ldquo;One of the uniquely important missions of state-supported universities is training the next generation of dentists,&rdquo; said De Fanti. &ldquo;We are very proud that Cristian Luciano is devoting his fellowship work here to creating advanced computer-based training materials for dental students using virtual reality and touch / feel built by UIC&rsquo;s Electronic Visualization Laboratory.&rdquo; 

Luciano earned a bachelor&rsquo;s degree in computer science at the Universidad Tecnol&oacute;gica Nacional, Argentina and a master&rsquo;s degree in industrial engineering at UIC. He expects to receive his Ph.D. in 2005. His work has been supported by two Fulbright fellowships.

C. J. Luciano

Cristian Luciano Wins Fellowship to Design Virtual Reality Dentistry Simulator

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

Chip shows his portfolio work. Most of this is from his undergrad thesis. 

Mark presents some work done during his previous semester(s) at UIC using his website for that purpose. He also shows a proposed project to be produced during this next semester and possibly into the following one as well.

New MFA Student Presentations

The inventors of the CAVE - Thomas DeFanti, Daniel Sandin, and Carolina Cruz-Neira have been named by the IEEE VGTC VR Awards Committee as the 2007 IEEE Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award winners for their development of the CAVE technology. The award will be presented during the IEEE Virtual Reality Conference (<a href="http://conferences.computer.org/vr/2007/">VR2007</a>), March 10-14 in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Currently, Thomas DeFanti and Daniel Sandin are Directors of the EVL lab, while Carolina Cruz-Neira is Executive Director, Chief Scientist at the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise (<a href="http://www.lite3d.com">LITE</a>).

Thomas DeFanti, Daniel Sandin, and Carolina Cruz-Neira

CAVE Inventors Receive IEEE Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award

The Electronic Visualization Laboratory was represented by Alex Hill at at the Software Engineering Research Center (<a href="http://www.serc.net">SERC</a>) Fall meeting at Ball State. The SERC Center is a graduated NSF Industrial / University Cooperative Research Center. 

Alex Hill presented his dissertation work on a unified framework for desktop and immersive user interfaces and presented an overview of EVL&rsquo;s current research. 

Dr. Wayne Zage, director of the SERC Center, presented a proposal called &ldquo;LifeWerx&rdquo; that outlined methods for collaborative work and worker &ldquo;interuptability&rdquo; within &ldquo;SecondLife&rdquo;. 

Jonathan Kaplan from SUN MicroSystems gave a presentation about their new collaborative virtual worldbuilding suite called Project Wonderland. 

The SERC center was established by the National Science Foundation nearly 20 years ago, to encourage cooperative research between academia and industry. The SERC is one of over 50 such centers established by NSF, and the only one devoted to software engineering. It was founded in 1986. The program is known at NSF as the Industry-University Cooperative Research Center program (IUCRC for short). The University of Illinois at Chicago is one of SERC&rsquo;s University Participants.

EVL Represented at SERC Showcase

Open Surgery Training Simulator Using Haptics and Augmented Reality Technologies 

This thesis focuses on the R&amp;D of a novel Haptics-based Augmented Reality system that is able to realistically simulate open surgical procedures, called ImmersiveTouch&reg;. 

As a proof of concept, a neurosurgical procedure called ventriculostomy is simulated. This surgical procedure consists of the insertion of a catheter in the brain ventricles for draining excess spinal fluid and reducing intracranial pressure. While performing the surgery, neurosurgeons must rely on their fine eye-hand coordination and sense of touch to properly orient and introduce the catheter, as a subtle puncturing sensation is felt when the catheter cannulates the ventricles. 

The new high-fidelity simulator can help trainees to develop both tactile and psychomotor skills required to perform a ventriculostomy. As an interdisciplinary project between the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and the Department of Neurosurgery at UIC, the ultimate goal of this doctoral dissertation is to provide an interactive educational instrument to better train medical residents, allowing them to become proficient prior to working with real patients, unrestricted by time and patient safety constraints. 

Industrial Virtual Reality Institute, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Dissertation Announcement

3D isosurfaces: skin, skull, brain and ventricles

PhD Dissertation: Open Surgery Training Simulator

Cristian Javier Luciano&rsquo;s doctoral dissertation &ldquo;Open Surgery Training Simulator Using Haptics and Augmented Reality Technologies&rdquo; has been nominated by the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering for the Annual Graduate College Outstanding Thesis Award for 2010. Awards are made in only four divisional categories: 
<ul>
<li>Behavioral and Social Science</li>
<li>Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences</li>
<li>Fine Arts and Humanities</li>
<li>Life Sciences</li>
</ul> 

Awards to be announced December 3, 2010.

Luciano Doctoral Dissertation Abstract

C. J. Luciano Dissertation Nominated for the Graduate College Outstanding Thesis Award 2010

Are you interested in learning a cool 3D-touch technology? 

EVL collaborator, Research Assistant Professor Cristian Luciano (MIE) introduces UIC&rsquo;s first hands-on course on haptics (or the sense of touch) and augmented reality. You&rsquo;ll learn how to successfully combine high-level 3D graphics, haptics, collision detection and physics-based dynamic simulation for a more realistic interactive experience. You&rsquo;ll be able to easily develop virtual reality applications to visualize and feel holographic-like virtual objects for engineering, medical, dental and scientific simulation and training. 

Multiple SensAble Technologies&rsquo; Omni haptic devices and PC workstations will be available for the students to develop the projects. 

Time: MW, 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM 
Place: 3290 SEL 
Pre-requisites: None 
Recommended for: Grads and undergrads 

Also, see: 
<a href="http://www.mie.uic.edu/MIE/WebHome">Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department News</a> 
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chicago-IL/UIC-College-of-Engineering/282582792165">UIC College of Engineering on Facebook</a> 
<a href="http://twitter.com/UICEngineering">twitter UIC Engineering</a>

ImmersiveTouch&trade; Augmented Reality Simulator

IE 494: Haptics &amp; Augmented Reality

February 25, 2012 

Jason Leigh and Andy Johnson of the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) recently learned that a paper they helped co-author 14 years ago has been selected as one of the top 20 papers by the International ACM Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC). 

HPDC, now in its 21st year, is working with Omni-Press to publish a special proceedings that features the top 20 papers from the past 20 years of HPDC publications. The 1998 paper &ldquo;Application Experiences with the Globus Toolkit&rdquo; is one of them. The papers for this special proceedings were nominated by the HPDC community-at-large and then selected by a committee. 

The paper features several applications that used Globus Toolkit, middleware that simplifies the use of &ldquo;computational grids&rdquo;. EVL&rsquo;s CAVERNsoft was one of them, utilizing Nexus, the communication component of the Globus Toolkit. CAVERNsoft, or CAVE Research Network software, simplified collaborative virtual-reality sessions, enabling geographically distributed users to define, update and access shared virtual worlds. 

By the late 90s, CAVERNsoft had a strong user community that connected remote CAVE&trade; and ImmersaDesk&trade; virtual environments for collaborative problem-solving. The article highlights a few CAVERNsoft applications, notably: it was the underlying data distribution architecture for VisualEyes, a collaborative design review system used by General Motors; CAVE5D, a collaborative system for visualizing multi-dimensional weather and environmental hydrology data; Virtual Temporal Bone, a collaborative learning environment to teach medical students the structure and function of the inner ear; and TIDE (Teleimmersive Data-mining Environment), a collaborative system for viewing decision-trees generated by data-mining classifiers (see image below). 

CAVERNsoft was a unique collaboration framework for its time. EVL continues to develop advanced display technologies and the collaboration software necessary to make them useful and usable, particularly with today&rsquo;s SAGE (Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment) middleware. 

EVL appreciates that HPDC selected this paper as one of its best papers for the past 20 years. A copy of the paper is available via the download link on the right (related document). 

Reference 
S. Brunett, K. Czajkowski, S. Fitzgerald, I. Foster, A. Johnson, C. Kesselman, J. Leigh, S. Tuecke, &ldquo;Application experiences with the Globus toolkit,&rdquo; Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC), 1998, pp 81-88, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/HPDC.1998.709959">dx.doi.org/10.1109/HPDC.1998.709959</a>

Application experiences with the Globus toolkit

TIDE application in the CAVE, with Jason Leigh and Andy Johnson

1998 research paper wins an award!

EDITOR&rsquo;S NOTE: The &ldquo;UIC Alumni Magazine&rdquo; Winter 2012 publication features a review of some of the leading innovations UIC forged in the past 30 years. The article cites the 1982 merger of the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle and the University of Illinois Medical Center as creating a new paradigm, one facilitating the free flow of research from faculty to physicians, researchers to end users, and back again. 
 
While the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) began innovating long before that - it was founded on interdisciplinary collaboration between the sciences and arts in 1973 - the article goes on to recognize one of EVL&rsquo;s major achievements in the past 30 years: &ldquo;UIC has played a critical role in virtual reality development. Its CAVE automatic virtual environment is used to analyze everything from molecules to car designs.&rdquo; 

Here is an excerpt from the article: 

The issue was comfort, or rather, the lack of it. To enter the virtual world of the early 1990s, users first had to don cumbersome helmets. Along with his colleagues, Thomas A. DeFanti, director emeritus of UIC&rsquo;s Electronic Visualization Laboratory, &ldquo;decided to turn the problem inside out,&rdquo; recalls current EVL Director Jason Leigh phd &rsquo;98 eng, then a Ph.D. student in the College of Engineering&rsquo;s Computer Science Department. &ldquo;Rather than project images through head gear, we decided to project them on walls.&rdquo; The resulting CAVE automatic virtual environment, essentially a room-sized cube within a larger room, directed projectors at several walls to create an experience akin to &ldquo;visiting the Grand Canyon rather than looking at a photo of it,&rdquo; says Leigh, adding that CAVE&rsquo;s eyewear not only proved lighter, but more immersive. &ldquo;Earlier eyewear tended to block peripheral vision,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Ours didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo; When it debuted in 1992, its impact was immediate. Users could see images that appeared to float on air. They could walk around an image and view it from different vantage points. Then came General Motors, which wanted to design cars with it. &ldquo;You could simulate the experience of sitting in a car, how it felt with a larger dashboard, then a smaller one, or a more prominent steering wheel, then a less prominent one,&rdquo; says Leigh. In October 2012, EVL launched CAVE2, which combines virtual reality and scalable-resolution display walls at a resolution matching that of human acuity. 

To read the entire article, see the link to the PDF (right).

UIC Alumni Magazine article

Professor Andy Johnson provides background about EVL to UIC prospective students using EVL&rsquo;s Cyber-Commons.

Discoveries Channeled: Celebrating 30 Years of UIC

Today the Associated Press issued the following article, photographs and video about the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory&rsquo;s CAVE2&trade; System, which is appearing in a variety of media outlets worldwide. 

Read the Associated Press article: <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/future-science-using-3d-worlds-visualize-data">Future science: Using 3D worlds to visualize data</a> 

Review the <a href="http://www.apimages.com/Search.aspx?st=k&amp;remem=x&amp;entity=&amp;kw=cave2&amp;intv=None&amp;shgroup=-10&amp;sh=10">photographs in the article</a> and a short video - <a href="http://youtu.be/aetwWTER4hE">First Person: a Big 3D Experience for Scientists</a>. 

In addition, link to a longer video <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-video/9882646/Star-Trek-style-holodeck-becomes-reality-as-scientists-invent-3D-vitual-reality-system.html">Star Trek-style holodeck becomes reality as scientists invent 3D virtual reality system</a>. 

DISCOVERY CANADA&rsquo;s &ldquo;Daily Planet&rdquo; show, which has a digital technology segment called &ldquo;Digit@l&rdquo; produced and hosted by Lucas Cochran, picked up the Associated Press news and did their own <a href="http://watch.discoverychannel.ca/#clip869617">coverage of the CAVE2&trade; System</a>, which aired the evening of February 20, 2013; UIC appears about 1:24 minutes into the episode.

EVL Director Jason Leigh wearing CAVE2&trade; 3D tracked glasses.

Associated Press releases print and video stories about UIC / EVL CAVE2&trade; System

EDITOR&rsquo;S NOTE: The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) licensed the CAVE2&trade; Hybrid Reality Environment to Mechdyne Corporation. Mechdyne released the following press release yesterday. 
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.mechdyne.com/cave2-images.aspx">High-resolution photos for the media</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.mechdyne.com/cave2.aspx">Information about Mechdyne&rsquo;s CAVE2&trade; product</a></li>
<li>Technology enhances learning experiences, research opportunities and collaboration</li>
<li>Advanced visualization system is &ldquo;lens&rdquo; that brings big data into focus</li>
</ul> 

Marshalltown, Iowa - March 5, 2013 - Mechdyne Corporation announced that it has licensed the CAVE2&trade; hybrid reality environment developed by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois at Chicago. The licensing agreement was signed in January of 2013, and continues the strong working relationship that began in 1994 when Mechdyne licensed the EVL-designed original CAVE&trade; technology. 

The term CAVE&trade; is an acronym for CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment and also a reference to &ldquo;The Simile of the Cave&rdquo; in Plato&rsquo;s Republic, in which the philosopher explored the concepts of perception, reality and illusion. 

The CAVE2&trade; system provides a near-seamless, 320 degree, panoramic 2D / 3D environment that supports information-rich analysis with stunning immersive visuals. &ldquo;Although the CAVE2&trade; advanced virtual reality technology is a next generation system, many of the legacy CAVE&trade; applications can be integrated into the CAVE2&trade; system,&rdquo; said Kurt Hoffmeister, VP of Engineering and Product Development for Mechdyne. 

&ldquo;With Mechdyne as an integrator of the CAVE2&trade; design, we can point our collaborators who are interested in incorporating the CAVE2&trade; technology to Mechdyne,&rdquo; said Jason Leigh, Ph.D., Director of the EVL and Professor of Computer Science at University of Illinois at Chicago. &ldquo;This enables our colleagues to receive a top notch product with full technical support from Mechdyne,&rdquo; Leigh explained. 

According to Hoffmeister, &ldquo;One of the biggest benefits offered by the CAVE2&trade; system is its versatility. The system can be integrated to provide the resolution and clarity that matches human visual acuity, for an entirely new level of immersive and collaborative experience.&rdquo; 

A key feature of the CAVE2&trade; design is the use of 3D capable LCD flat panel screens rather than rear projection, which enables more efficient use of facility space, compared to previous generation CAVE&trade; technology, Hoffmeister explained. &ldquo;The CAVE2&trade; design also accommodates off-axis vertical viewing angles, eliminating any 3D ghosting at the top or bottom of the large viewing area,&rdquo; he added. 

The development of the CAVE2&trade; technology was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy. Some of the royalties of licensing of the CAVE2&trade; system will help fund future research at EVL, explained Leigh. 

&ldquo;Every day we&rsquo;re hearing more and more about &lsquo;big data&rsquo;,&rdquo; Leigh commented. &ldquo;Advanced visualization systems like the CAVE2&trade; provide a lens to bring big data into focus - for deeper understanding and greater insight.&rdquo; 

Mechdyne expects major users of the CAVE2&trade; system will include universities, scientific research organizations, energy companies, and manufacturing and design organizations worldwide. 

<a href="http://www.mechdyne.com/cave2.aspx">More information about CAVE2&trade; technologies from Mechdyne</a> 

CAVE2&trade; and CAVE&trade; are trademarked by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. 

About Mechdyne Corporation 
<a href="http://www.mechdyne.com">Mechdyne</a> is one of the world&rsquo;s leading providers of innovative visual information technologies. The company bends technology in ways that transform complex data into insights and ideas. To ensure customers succeed, Mechdyne provides comprehensive, customized solutions that include consulting, software, technical services and hardware integration. Mechdyne, with offices around the world, serves a global customer base. Customers include: leading government laboratories, energy companies, universities, manufacturing and design firms, U.S. armed forces, and other users of visual information technologies. 

News Media Contacts: 
Dawn Bentley, Marketing Supervisor 
Mechdyne Corporation 
Phone 641-352-5125 
Email dawn.bentley @ mechdyne.com 

Maxine Brown, Associate Director, Electronic Visualization Laboratory 
University of Illinois at Chicago 
Phone 312-996-3002 
Email maxine @ uic.edu

The CAVE2&trade; Hybrid Reality Environment can display both 2D and 3D data simultaneously.

Mechdyne Corporation Licenses CAVE2&trade; Hybrid Reality Environment from the University of Illinois at Chicago

<a href="http://www.chicagoideas.com/events/203">Chicago Ideas Week (CIW) 2013</a> 

EVL TOUR SOLD OUT 

Date: Monday, October 14 
Time: 1:00pm - 2:00pm 

Location of EVL CAVE2&trade; Tours: 
EVL TOUR SOLD OUT 

EVL showcases the world of the future. Attendees registered for Chicago Ideas Week will see the EVL Cyber-Commons and CAVE2 - rooms where the surfaces are wallpapered with 3D TVs and seamlessly connected to phones or tablets. Note: Last year, Channel 7 (ABC) covered Chicago Ideas Week; EVL was featured in the <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&amp;id=8839408">segment (fast forward to 1:24)</a>.

EVL hosting industry collaborators in the CAVE2.

Chicago Ideas Week (CIW) 2013

Collaborative VisualEyes is the latest version of VisualEyes - the virtual reality systems used by Genreal Motors since 1993. Internaly developed, VisualEyes has been in production use since early 1995 in design and engineering applications, and is globally deployed. Collaboratoive VisualEyes enables global experimentation in distributed design reviews, and such experiments have been taking place to identify requiremements. The paper describes the simple, but powerful way that VisualEyes was retrofitted for collaboration, using CAVERNsoft. The same architecture is used to connect GM&rsquo;s high-end immersive displays to each other and to live applications. An example of a distributed design review scenario follows the architectural description.

Example Portals to Other Analysis Data

Collaborative VisualEyes

The PARIS (Personal Augmented Reality Immersive System) is a new VR display device that was first prototyped as a virtual device in a CAVE&reg; to aid in the development process. This initial prototyping in VR allowed the designers to save time and money, and to garner valuable feedback from prospective users, before finally committing the design to hardware.

Artist&rsquo;s Rendering of the Final PARIS Design

Developing the PARIS: Using the CAVE&reg; to Prototype a New VR Display

Virtual prototyping involves a synthesis of engineering methodology and immersive, three-dimensional visualization technology. Ideally, this is a process in which computational models are used in place of physical models in the development of a new product or design concept. If used successfully, virtual prototyping can lead to more rapid product design and development. 

Software is currently being developed that will enable virtual prototyping of mechanical systems in the CAVE at Argonne National Laboratory. This software has two principal components: (1) fast simulation software FIFEA (Fast Implicit Finite Element Analysis), for analyzing mechanical systems and (2) virtual reality display software for visualizing results and allowing user interaction. This paper discusses various issues related to the coupling of finite element software to the CAVE display system.

Virtual Disk Brake

Toward Real-time Interactive Virtual Prototyping of Mechanical Systems: Experiences Coupling Virtual Reality with Finite Element Anaylsis

In this paper we present an approach to applying virtual reality in architectural design and collaborative visualization which emphasizes the use of multiple perspectives. These perspectives, including multiple mental models as well as multiple visual viewpoints, allow virtual reality to be applied in the earlier, more creative, phases of the design process, rather than just as a walkthrough of the final design. CALVIN, a prototype interface which implements these ideas, has been created using the CAVE virtual reality theatre.

A Selection of CALVIN Avatars

Multi-Perspective Collaborative Design in Persistent Networked Virtual Environments

One of the major problems in three-dimensional field computation is visualizing the resulting 3-D field distributions. A virtual reality environment, such as the CAVE is helping to overcome this problem, thus making the results of computation more usable for designers and users of magnets and other electromagnetic devices.  As a demonstration of the capabilities of the CAVE, the Elliptical Multiplole Wiggler (EMW), an insertion device being disigned for the Advanced Photon Source (APS) now being commissioned at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) was made visible, along with its fields and beam orbits. Other use of the CAVE in preprocessing and postprocessing computation for electromagnetic applications is underway.

Virtual Reality Visualization of Accelerator Magnets

Attendees of SIGGRAPH 94 experienced the actual use and future direction of scientific visualization in computational science and engineering in VROOM - the Virtual Reality Room. 

Over 40 projects involving over 200 researchers and programmers were demonstrated in CAVE and BOOM areas for four days of the conference held in Orlando this past July.

SIGGRAPH &rsquo;94 Visual Proceedings - VROOM

SIGGRAPH &rsquo;94 Visual Proceedings

Common VR systems use head mounted displays that require duplicating user input devices in virtual space for interactive environments. 

A major advantage of projection based VR systems such as the CAVE&trade; is the ability of the user to see his / her own body and real objects in a virtual environment. This paper describes the development of specialized interfaces for virtual environment exploration by people who use wheelchairs. These real, tangible interfaces are intuitive and most appropriate for wheelchair simulations. Examples of these are interfaces that match the user&rsquo;s wheelchair dynamics for joystick or tiller operated electric wheelchairs. 

The importance of this research is in applications where proposed constructed environments are analyzed by users of wheelchairs. Additional applications include wheelchair mobility training and wheelchair controller design.

Transit System Design for ADA Compatibility

Input Interfacing to the CAVE&trade; by Persons with Disabilities

In this chapter we will discuss our work to enable effective collaboration between remote participants within immersive virtual reality environments. We will discuss several of the environments we have created, the lessons we have learned, and the issues that are driving our current research. Our focus is on high-quality collaboration among a handful of participants connected by high-speed, high-bandwidth national and international networks in areas such as scientific visualization, education and design. Sharing these virtual environments with your remote collaborators as well as the topic of your collaboration may be better than collaborating with them in person, as you can now collaborate while standing inside your data, sharing the context of your discussions.

User Interacting with Video Avatar on ImmersaDesk2

Tele-Immersive Collaboration in the CAVE&reg; Research Network (chapter)

Excerpt from Virtual Manufacturing 

With the advent of high-resolution graphics, high-speed computing, and user interaction devices, virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a major new technology in recent years. An important new concept introduced by many VR systems is immersion, which refers to the feeling of complete immersion in a three-dimensional computer-generated environment by means of user-centered perspective achieved through tracking the user. This is a huge step forward compared to classical modeling and CAD / CAM packages, which inherently impose major limitations on intuitive user interaction. VR technology is currently used in a broad range of applications, the best known being flight simulators, walkthroughs, video games, and medicine (virtual surgery). From a manufacturing standpoint, some of the attractive applications include training, collaborative product and process design, facility monitoring, and management. Moreover, recent advances in broadband networks are also opening up new applications for telecollaborative virtual environments in these areas. 

In this book we have chosen to cover certain areas which we believe to have a potentially significant impact on virtual manufacturing. This is still an evolving list and includes areas such as facility layout and work-cell management, real-time exact collision detection, motion modeling, avatar modeling, and virtual-real environment interaction in training, based on our years of experience in this field. In addition to these areas, the book explores some connections between VR and computer vision (especially camera self-calibration and stereo vision) in the context of depth recovery in virtual manufacturing. Some of the automation techniques resulting from these concepts can potentially reduce a lot of time and boredom for users involved in manually creating CAD-based virtual environments. Lately, with the emergence of complementary areas of VR such as augmented reality (AR), one can address crucial problems of registration between virtual and real worlds. 

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to virtual manufacturing in the context of the book, provides illustrative applications and highlights research issues. In Chapters 2 to 5 we present some basic principles of computer graphics, virtual reality, depth extraction, and shape reconstruction, respectively. Numerous applications in virtual manufacturing are presented in Chapters 6 to 10. These applications have been developed based on work carried out at the Industrial Virtual Reality Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago. They include the thesis work of A. Banerjee, R. Tesic, D. Zetu, and V. Giallorenzo. The contributions of the following individuals are also gratefully acknowledged: A. Akgunduz, C. Luciano, D. Thompson, P. Schneider, S. Anantharaman, and K. Gierach. The book is meant as an introduction to the basic concepts of virtual manufacturing from a VR perspective, not only for engineering students, but also for professionals interested in developing applications in this field. Last, but not the least, we would also like to thank T. DeFanti, D. Sandin, M. Brown, J. Leigh, D. Pape. D. Plepys, G. Dawe, A. Verlo, and numerous other members of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago for providing constant encouragement and support over a number of years to make some of the work possible. 

- From Virtual Manufacturing, by Prashant Banerjee, et al. &copy; March 9, 2001 , Wiley used by permission.

Virtual Manufacturing

Reconfigurable Driving Platforms in CAVE&reg;

A Supervisory Data-Traffic Controller in Collaborative Virtual Reality Simulations

3D Animation Of Telecollaborative Anthropomorphous Avatars Using High-Performance Real-Time Inverse Kinematics Based On Dual Quaternions

Tendencies And Market Perspective In The Virtual Reality And Visual Simulation Area

Progress in the Development of a Haptic / Virtual Reality Simulation Program for Scaling and Root Planing

Linear Programming Based Collision Detection Algorithm for Fast Moving Object

OBJECTIVE: Mastery of the neurosurgical skill set involves many hours of supervised intraoperative training. Convergence of political, economic, and social forces has limited neurosurgical resident operative exposure. There is need to develop realistic neurosurgical simulations that reproduce the operative experience, unrestricted by time and patient safety constraints. Computer-based, virtual reality platforms offer just such a possibility. The combination of virtual reality with dynamic, three-dimensional stereoscopic visualization, and haptic feedback technologies makes realistic procedural simulation possible. Most neurosurgical procedures can be conceptualized and segmented into critical task components, which can be simulated independently or in conjunction with other modules to recreate the experience of a complex neurosurgical procedure. 

METHODS: We use the ImmersiveTouch (ImmersiveTouch, Inc., Chicago, IL) virtual reality platform, developed at the University of Illinois at Chicago, to simulate the task of ventriculostomy catheter placement as a proof-of-concept. Computed tomographic data are used to create a virtual anatomic volume. 

RESULTS: Haptic feedback offers simulated resistance and relaxation with passage of a virtual three-dimensional ventriculostomy catheter through the brain parenchyma into the ventricle. A dynamic three-dimensional graphical interface renders changing visual perspective as the user&rsquo;s head moves. The simulation platform was found to have realistic visual, tactile, and handling characteristics, as assessed by neurosurgical faculty, residents, and medical students. 

CONCLUSION: We have developed a realistic, haptics-based virtual reality simulator for neurosurgical education. Our first module recreates a critical component of the ventriculostomy placement task. This approach to task simulation can be assembled in a modular manner to reproduce entire neurosurgical procedures. 

Copyright &copy; by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons

Collocation of the virtual volumes (virtual patient head and catheter) with real-space is critical to the platform&rsquo;s realistic virtual reality

Virtual Reality in Neurosurgical Education: Part-task Ventriculostomy Simulation with Dynamic Visual and Haptic Feedback

Object. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of ventriculostomy catheter placement on a head- and hand-tracked high-resolution and high-performance virtual reality and haptic technology workstation. 

Methods. Seventy-eight fellows and residents performed simulated ventriculostomy catheter placement on an ImmersiveTouch system. The virtual catheter was placed into a virtual patient&rsquo;s head derived from a computed tomography data set. Participants were allowed one attempt each. The distance from the tip of the catheter to the Monro foramen was measured. 

Results. The mean distance (6 standard deviation) from the final position of the catheter tip to the Monro foramen was 16.09 mm (6 7.85 mm). 

Conclusions. The accuracy of virtual ventriculostomy catheter placement achieved by participants using the simulator is comparable to the accuracy reported in a recent retrospective evaluation of free-hand ventriculostomy placements in which the mean distance from the catheter tip to the Monro foramen was 16 mm (6 9.6 mm). 

(DOI: 10.3171/JNS-07/09/0515) 

Keywords: Haptic technology, neurosurgical simulation, ventriculostomy, virtual reality

Photo of ImmersiveTouch system in operation

Accuracy of ventriculostomy catheter placement using a head- and hand-tracked high-resolution virtual reality simulator with haptic feedback

The current inability to realistically simulate and test dynamic user interfaces of mobile device prototypes is one of the prime limiting factors to successful product launches. Current processes provide very little insight into inter-relationships among physical form of the product, the human-machine interface and the applications that run on those devices. In this paper, we present a technique that provides a common platform where product designers, user interface developers and software programmers can interactively visualize and test their new concepts by exploring and touching a 3D virtual reality prototype using Augmented Reality and Haptics. This simulation tool can enhance or even replace traditional prototyping and facilitate testing of the prototype at various points of the design cycle. 

Keywords: Augmented Reality, Product Design, Virtual Reality Prototyping, User Interface, Haptics, Simulation

Functional Virtual Reality Prototype of a PDA interacted with a virtual stylus

Applying Augmented Reality and Haptics to Evaluate Dynamic Prototypes of Mobile Devices

An algorithm to provide haptic feedback directly from volumetric datasets is introduced in this paper. The algorithm is able to reproduce and extend the functionality of surface-based haptics rendering methods. It can be easily implemented on top of existing haptic libraries, such as Sensable&rsquo;s OpenHaptics. In addition, our approach overcomes poor performance in OpenHaptics for models consisting of a large number of polygons (1Million+). The algorithm allows detecting collisions with multiple 3-dimensional shapes. After comparing alternative approaches, such as Depth Buffer and Feedback Buffer, as well as SenseGraphics&rsquo; Volume Haptics ToolKit (ScalarSurfaceFriction mode), our algorithm delivers the highest performance in terms of rendering time.

User&rsquo;s View of Augmented Reality Session Using Haptics

Haptic Interaction with Volumetric Datasets Using Surface-based Haptic Libraries

This thesis focuses on the research and development of a novel Haptics-based Augmented Reality system that is able to realistically simulate open surgical procedures, called ImmersiveTouch&reg;. 

As a proof of concept, a neurosurgical procedure called ventriculostomy is simulated. This surgical procedure consists of the insertion of a catheter in the brain ventricles for draining excess spinal fluid and reducing intracranial pressure. While performing the surgery, neurosurgeons must rely on their fine eye-hand coordination and sense of touch to properly orient and introduce the catheter, as a subtle puncturing sensation is felt when the catheter cannulates the ventricles. 

The new high-fidelity simulator can help trainees to develop both tactile and psychomotor skills required to perform a ventriculostomy. As an interdisciplinary project between the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and the Department of Neurosurgery at UIC, the ultimate goal of this doctoral dissertation is to provide an interactive educational instrument to better train medical residents, allowing them to become proficient prior to working with real patients, unrestricted by time and patient safety constraints.

Visualization of the cannulated ventricles

Open Surgery Training Simulator Using Haptics and Augmented Reality Technologies

Caterpillar, Inc. uses virtual reality as a tool for interactively evaluating new machine designs. Using virtual reality, the operator of a virtual machine can test alternative machine designs while driving through a virtual proving ground, or can perform a loading cycle to fill a truck with soil. Hydraulically-actuated tools can be assessed with various hydraulic systems. 

Using a virtual-reality system enables engineers and designers to get a &ldquo;feel&rdquo; for their machine designs very early in the design stage, helping them evaluate many different designs in shorter periods of time than possible using conventional methods. 

This application was a part of VROOM - the Virtual Reality Room event showcased at SIGGRAPH 94.

Using Virtual Reality For Machine Design

One of the areas of research that Motorola actively engages in is the drop testing of their products. Physical drop tests typically produce few useful results as they typically only identify whether the product did or did not survive a fall. There is no easy way to observe the fall at the moment of impact. In particular there is no easy way to observe the effects of such a crash from within the device to identify key weaknesses in the product design. Computer simulation of the drop test in virtual reality, allows careful analysis of the results upon impact. 

For this project the Motorola drop test of a pager is simulated on supercomputers, then the effects of the impact are reviewed from within the CAVE. Being fully immersed within the CAVE environment allows for a more natural interface to view the data. Using a cutting plane, engineers can push through the pager revealing the inner circuitry and printed-circuit board (PCB) housing. As the pager is rendered larger than life in the CAVE, the observer can physically walk inside to observe how the PCB dislodges from its housing at the moment of impact. Based on the data obtained, the designer can devise supports to further strengthen the housing. 

Adding tele-immersive capabilities to this visualization tool, allows Motorola engineers to discuss and collaboratively review their findings with their colleagues around the world.

Pager Drop Test

Motorola Drop Test Visualization

General Motors has developed VisualEyes (VE) - an application that allows designers to import 3D CAD models into the CAVE for quick visual inspection and design reviews. This initial use of CAVE-based technology has generated considerable interest in other GM sites around the world, some of whom are planning their own CAVE installations. This has prompted GM to further extend VisualEyes to allow GM&rsquo;s trans-globally situated design and manufacturing teams to collaborate in remote design reviews. The goal is to allow designers to both synchronously and asynchronously access a design that persists and evolves over time. 

VE was retro-fitted with tele-immersive capabilities by incorporating one of CAVERNsoft&rsquo;s avatar templates. Then the scene graphs of each participating VE client were linked using CAVERNsoft&rsquo;s shared memory services allowing the change of one part of a design to be automatically shared amongst all the other participants. As the goal was to develop both a synchronous and asynchronous tool, CAVERNsoft&rsquo;s database services were used to save the state of the environment before all the participants left. As CAVERNsoft is client / server symmetric, VE clients were able to connect to each other or to a central broadcasting server (which itself was a CAVERNsoft program, but without any graphics capabilities).

Virtual Auto Interior

VisualEyes

This application models the pouring of a fluidity spiral used to measure the distance metal can flow in a channel before being stopped by solidification. The gray iron at 1395 degrees C is poured into the mold for two seconds and flows down the spiral arm turning to mush at 1215 degrees C and solidifying at 1150 degrees C. The casting then continues to lose heat to the mold until solidification is complete. 

The calculations were performed using the Casting Process Simulator (CaPS), robust multidimensional time-dependent computer code that uses a finite-volume formulation in solving mass, momentum, and energy equations, and performs mold filling and solidification

Visualization of Casting Process in Foundries

Participants walk through an architectural model of University of California, San Diego&rsquo;s recently dedicated Structural and Materials Engineering (SME) building in the CAVE2&trade; System. The Graphics, Visualization and Virtual Reality Laboratory (GRAVITY) at the Jacobs School of Engineering produced the SME model. Calit2&rsquo;s CalVR software is used to display the 3D model in the CAVE2 System.

Structural and Materials Engineering building model in the CAVE2

Architectural Design of a UCSD Engineering Building

Participants walk through a 3D model of an 80x60x20-foot section of the rebar cage of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Note that this model is not the entire bridge, but only the footing of the tower, which anchors it onto the sea floor. The model was created by engineers from American Bridge Company / Fluor Enterprises Inc. Andre Barbosa, then a graduate student in the Structural Engineering Department of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), converted the model from Microstation to VRML, which was then visualized by UCSD Computer Science professor Jurgen Schulze. Barbosa&rsquo;s advisors were Schulze and structural engineering professors Frieder Seible (UCSD) and Karl Beucke (Bauhaus Univ. Weimar, Germany). Calit2&rsquo;s CalVR software is used to display the 3D model in the CAVE2&trade;.

Rebar Cage

EVL PhD alumna and director of the University of Arkansas Little Rock&rsquo;s Emerging Analytics Center, Carolina Cruz-Neira hosts the inaugural open house of her latest Virtual Reality Center. 
Among Cruz-Neira&rsquo;s accomplishments is as the co-creator of the CAVE&trade; Virtual Realtiy Environment, developed as part of her PhD research at EVL. She is also recognized by having founded and led very successful virtual reality research centers, like the Virtual Reality Applications Center at Iowa State University, the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise and now the Emerging Analytics Center (EAC). 
EAC&rsquo;s work is centered on interdisciplinary projects and it covers a wide range of topics from the development and use of large-scale one-of-a-kind systems to every day portable technologies such as smart phones, glasses and tablets as well as pioneering applications for these technologies in many disciplines and markets. 
EAC&rsquo;’s projects are in areas such as large data visualization, data analytics, training environments, software architectures for visualization and virtual reality, technology development, modeling and simulation, museum installations, and tech-transfer to many of our sponsors and collaborators. 
Join Cruz-Neira and EAC faculty, researchers, and students at the facility open house October 16-17, 2015 at the Emerging Analytics Center, UALR EIT - 420. 
Register: <a href="discovervirtualreality.eventbrite.com">discovervirtualreality.eventbrite.com</a>

EAC Open House Flyer

Carolina Cruz-Neira

EVL Alumna Opens Emerging Analytics Center at University of Arkansas

Newcity magazine is Chicago&rsquo;s only locally owned and operated cultural weekly, and has been covering Chicago&rsquo;s local scene for more than 25 years. It&rsquo;s current &ldquo;Best of Chicago&rdquo; issue just came out (Volume 31, No. 1359). The section on City Life lists many best things about Chicago, including &ldquo;Best place to get your geek on.&rdquo; Um, that would be the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago! The article is reproduced below. 
* * * * * * * * * * 
Best place to get your geek on 
The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at UIC 
Cutting-edge research meets a massive wall made out of small screens that would make any hardcore videogame fan scream and a literal cave that opens up a highly immersive, surround-screen, surround-sound, virtual reality environment at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The lab brings together academics, designers, engineers, artists and mad scientists using technologies that bend reality off into unimaginable directions. EVL is the place where visualization, virtual reality and real-time interactive computer graphics are born. As if that were not enough, it was here that the computer graphics for the first &ldquo;Star Wars&rdquo; film were created in 1976. How cool is that? 
UIC College of Engineering, Department of Computer Science, 842 W. Taylor 
Best of Chicago 2016

Best of Chicago 2016

Newcity magazine rates UIC/EVL as &ldquo;Best place to get your geek on&rdquo;

JUNE 13, 2017 - Ryan Wolff and David Wolff, producers of the documentary web series &ldquo;The Good Stuff,&rdquo; recently completed a program on virtual-reality headsets, but &ldquo;as awesome as the experience was,&rdquo; says Ryan, &ldquo;it’s isolating. Wouldn&rsquo;t it be cool if there was a virtual-reality room you could share with other people, so your friends could actually see and experience what you&rsquo;re seeing? Could such a place actually exist? In Chicago? Five miles from where I live?&rdquo; 
Those questions prompted a visit to the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), to talk with Computer Science Associate Professor and EVL Director of Research Andy Johnson, and to see and experience the CAVE2 Hybrid Reality Environment. In their documentary &ldquo;Inside a Real Life Holodeck,&rdquo; Ryan exclaims, &ldquo;The idea of a room you can just walk into and have it simulate any environment that you want has been a big part of Sci Fi and fantasy series for a long time, except that this time...there&rsquo;s a real-life Holodeck sitting in an engineering building on a college campus.&rdquo; 
The 11 minute video also briefly talks about EVL&rsquo;s rich history: its early days when engineers and visual artists collaborated in a UIC lab then known as the Circle Graphics Habitat; its development of the Sayre glove--the first wired data glove and precursor of the Nintendo Power Glove; its role in creating the Death Star plans in the first Star Wars movie; and, its development of the original CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment. 
Andy Johnson understands the power of virtual reality; in the video, he describes his first experience in EVL&rsquo;s CAVE in the early 1990s as &ldquo;technology as magic.&rdquo; His interview is insightful, from his views of the current state of virtual reality, to various scientific applications that help researchers understand our world, to future implications of virtual reality in our society. 
Though all were in agreement that virtual-reality headsets are impressive, there is something special about the room-sized CAVE2&rsquo;s ability to let participants &ldquo;see people’s eyes, see their expressions, or know what they are pointing at or looking at in space.&rdquo; Andy Johnson elaborates that &ldquo;the lab…created a shared space where it’s the screens, the walls, that are active. So, you not only have a connection with the virtual space, but a strong connection between people.&rdquo; 
YouTube video: &ldquo;Inside a Real Life Holodeck&rdquo; 
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L4gBCtfqZtU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

David Wolff of The Good Stuff inside UIC/EVL’s CAVE2 Hybrid Reality Environment, interacting with the Connectome neural network of the brain provided by the UIC Psychiatry Department.

Inside a Real Life Holodeck

October 1 - - EVL Director of Research Andrew Johnson has been named Interim Director of EVL following Maxine Brown&rsquo;s retirement from UIC. Johnson now assumes the responsibility of heading EVL - overseeing EVL&rsquo;s overall mission in education, research, development, and technology transfer. 
For over 23 years, Johnson has been a valued EVL faculty member (Professor of Computer Science) and researcher who has focused upon interaction and collaboration using advanced visualization displays and the application of those displays to enhance discovery and learning. 
His areas of expertise include visualization, virtual and augmented reality, natural language processing, visual analytics, and high-performance networking. 
Over the years, Johnson has been instrumental in the development of EVL instrumentation and systems, including the Continuum smart environment, CAVE2&trade;, LambdaVision high-resolution tiled displays, LambdaTable tabletop touch system, GeoWall portable geoscience display environment, PARIS augmented reality and ImmersaDesk virtual reality systems. He has overseen the development of numerous visualization and virtual reality applications across diverse domain disciplines from science and engineering to the humanities and art. Johnson is a highly regarded mentor and educator to EVL&rsquo;s graduate students and undergraduates alike. 
Johnson retains his position as Director of Research while leading EVL&rsquo;s future initiatives and innovations as Interim Director.

Industrial VR

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