EVL Exhibition at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium

December 11th, 2004

Categories: Applications, Devices, Visualization

Screenshots from <em>Arcanius</em>
Screenshots from Arcanius

About

On December 11, from 1:00 - 3:00pm, the Adler Planetarium is presenting Mars Explorer, a Mars Rover simulation; and Arcanius, a Solar System exploration simulation. The games were designed by undergraduate and graduate Art and Computer Science students from University of Illinois at Chicago, as part of a semester-long course in video game programming taught by Associate Professor of Computer Science Jason Leigh.

The games will be featured in Adler’s Crown 3D Theater, the first theater in the country to show 3D images from the Mars Rover expedition. The technology supporting the games on exhibit is based on the Electronic Visualization Laboratory’s GeoWall, a projection-based system for viewing 3D stereoscopic computer graphics.

Mars Explorer, designed by Chip Collier, Ken Dellmeyer, and Xinxia Wu, allows the player to roam the sand-and-rock-strewn Martian surface. The game’s designers worked with scientists at Adler to better understand the challenges of running a Rover.

Arcanius, designed by Gideon Goldman and Julieta Aguilera, allows the player to explore the planets and moons of our Solar System. Players can travel from planet to planet, as well as view it in its entirety, with the planets orbiting and leaving trails of spiraling helixes as it moves through space.

Open to the public with regular admission.

Resources

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