TeraVision

A Platform and Software Independent Solution for Real Time Display Distribution in Advanced Collaborative Environments

Rajvikram Singh, Jason Leigh

www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/teravision/

TeraVision is a real-time method to distribute visual imagery from any graphics platform over the Access Grid that requires no setup, software, or hardware changes to the user's computer. TeraVision's goal is to provide one solution for what iscommonly referred to as the "Docking Problem / Display Pushing Problem" on the AccessGrid. That is, to provide ameans for anyone on the Access Grid to plug-in, for example their laptop, and to deliver a presentation without having to install or configure any software, or distribute any of the data files, in advance.

TeraVision is a hardware-assisted, network-enabled "Powerpoint" projector for the AccessGrid. A user who wants to give a presentation on his/her laptop, or show output from one of the nodes of a graphics cluster simply plugs the VGA or DVI-output of the computer into the TeraVision Box (VisionBox). The box captures the signal at its native resolution, digitizes it and broadcasts it to other networked VisionBoxes (see Figure below). Furthermore, using the VisionBox one can also transmit an entire tiled-display provided there are sufficient VisionBoxes at each end-point. Two VisionBoxes can be connected to the twin-heads of a stereoscopic AGAVE system to allow streaming of stereoscopic computer graphics.

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