CHICAGO TRIBUNE highlights UIC EVL’s participation in Chicago Ideas Week 2013

October 21st, 2013

Categories: Applications, Devices, Education, Software, User Groups, VR, VR Art

Chicago Ideas Week participants board the StarTrek Enterprise in the CAVE2. Enterprise interior and exterior models by Arthur Nishimoto, Dennis Baily and Eric Clark.
Chicago Ideas Week participants board the StarTrek Enterprise in the CAVE2. Enterprise interior and exterior models by Arthur Nishimoto, Dennis Baily and Eric Clark.

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Chicago Ideas Week: Lab attendees visit Mars and Egypt with UIC’s EVL

On October 21, 2013, the CHICAGO TRIBUNE published an article highlighting the participation of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in the annual Chicago Ideas Week (CIW). CIW is a one-week event that serves as a global hub for new ideas, an ecosystem for innovation and a playground of intellectual recreation, and provides the general public with opportunities to explore what happens behind the scenes at some of Chicago’s greatest organizations and businesses. This is the second year that EVL participated, and registration, limited to 50 people, quickly sold out.

EVL showcased both its unique Cyber-Commons and CAVE2™ technologies. In her article, TRIBUNE writer Fran Hoepfner quoted both Computer Science / EVL professor Andrew Johnson, who hosted the event, and Computer Science graduate student and EVL research assistant Arthur Nishimoto, who was assisting with demonstrations. Here are several excerpts from the article:

“Using CAVE2, participants were transported from the surface of Mars to Luxor, Egypt to explore hieroglyphics. Graduate student Arthur Nishimoto, 26, also took participants to Star Trek’s Starship Enterprise… UIC’s EVL lab works to reimagine the way that not only scientists, but archeologists, architects, and historians, visualize their data.”

“Despite the diversity of the projects, the EVL truly has one goal, Johnson said. ‘Creating a space, having a bunch of toys, and doing stuff,’ he said. And if that ‘doing stuff’ leads to an impromptu, virtual trip to Mars, then it would seem the EVL is doing something truly innovative and fun, indeed.”

Read the TRIBUNE article, Chicago Ideas Week: Lab attendees visit Mars and Egypt with UIC’s EVL by Fran Hoepfner, Chicago Tribune, October 21, 2013

NOTE: Last year, Channel 7 (ABC) covered Chicago Ideas Week; EVL was featured in the segment starting at 1:24.