Electronic Visualization Laboratory
University of Illinois at Chicago
This paper documents the planning and creation of the interactive environment called the House of the Future or Smart House which I implemented as my MFA project and as part of the collaborative art event called EVE4. I will begin with the proposal that Jason Leigh and I drafted for inclusion in EVE4. Next I will talk about the factors which motivated the creation of this environment and the particular type of interaction that it contains as well as a personal statement of my involvement in this project. I will follow this with a description of the rooms of the house and their functionality and follow this up with implementation details of the creation of the house since many of it's elements represent ground breaking research in virtual reality, namely the CAVE to CAVE aspects of the interactions within the house, voice recognition, and the `smart' scripting of the house interaction. Finally, I will discuss the future direction for this type of simulation in virtual environments and the future for smart house technology.
Since part of my MFA experience also includes the chairing the planning committee for EVE4, I have included an appendix of various planning details for the show. As this was a major part of my learning experience and as the show progressed successfully, I felt that many of the details should be documented for future virtual reality shows. In particular, the idiosyncratic details of scheduling CAVE time need to be documented since, despite the many shows which the CAVE has been in previously, no formal description exists to help plan such an event.