Alan Verlo

CAVE2: a hybrid reality environment for immersive simulation and information analysis

Hybrid Reality Environments represent a new kind of visualization spaces that blur the line between virtual environments and high resolution tiled display walls. This paper outlines the design and implementation of the CAVE2TM Hybrid Reality Environment. CAVE2 is the world’s first near-seamless flat-panel-based, surround-screen immersive system. Unique to CAVE2 is that it will enable users to simultaneously view both 2D and 3D information, providing more flexibility for mixed media applications. CAVE2 is a cylindrical system of 24 feet in diameter and 8 feet tall, and consists of 72 near-seamless, off-axisoptimized passive stereo LCD panels, creating an approximately 320 degree panoramic environment for displaying information at 37 Megapixels (in stereoscopic 3D) or 74 Megapixels in 2D and at a horizontal visual acuity of 20/20. Custom LCD panels with shifted polarizers were built so the images in the top and bottom rows of LCDs are optimized for vertical off-center viewing- allowing viewers to come closer to the displays while minimizing ghosting. CAVE2 is designed to support multiple operating modes. In the Fully Immersive mode, the entire room can be dedicated to one virtual simulation. In 2D model, the room can operate like a traditional tiled display wall enabling users to work with large numbers of documents at the same time. In the Hybrid mode, a mixture of both 2D and 3D applications can be simultaneously supported. The ability to treat immersive work spaces in this Hybrid way has never been achieved before, and leverages the special abilities of CAVE2 to enable researchers to seamlessly interact with large collections of 2D and 3D data. To realize this hybrid ability, we merged the Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment (SAGE) - a system for supporting 2D tiled displays, with Omegalib - a virtual reality middleware supporting OpenGL, OpenSceneGraph and Vtk applications.

Adaptive networking for tele-immersion

Tele-Immersive applications possess an unusually broad range of networking requirements. As high-speed and Quality of Service-enabled networks emerge, it will becoming more difficult for developers of Tele-Immersion applications, and networked applications in general, to take advantage of these enhanced services. This paper proposes an adaptive networking framework to ultimately allow applications to optimize their network utilization in pace with advances in networking services. In working toward this goal, this paper will present a number of networking techniques for improving performance in tele-immersive applications and examines whether the Differentiated Services mechanism for network Quality of Service is suitable for Tele-Immersion.

The first functional demonstration of optical virtual concatenation as a technique for achieving terabit networking

The optical virtual concatenation (OVC) function of The Terabit LAN was demonstrated for the first time at the iGrid 2005 workshop in San Diego, California. The TERAbit-LAN establishes a lambda group path (LGP) for an application where the number of lambdas/L2 connections in a LGP can be specified by the application. Each LGP is logically treated as one end-to-end optical path, so during parallel transport, the LGP channels have no relative latency deviation. However, optical path diversity (e.g. restoration) can cause LGP relative latency deviations and negatively affect quality of service. OVC hardware developed by NTT compensates for relative latency deviations to achieve a virtual bulk transport for the Electronic Visualization Laboratorys (EVL) Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment application.

The First Application-driven Lambda-on-Demand Field Trial over a US Nationwide Network

The Lambda-on-demand functionality with link aggregation to accommodate the dynamic bandwidth demands of an ultra-high-resolution visualization application was realized in over a US nationwide photonic network for the first time.

Stable IP-Routing Link Restoration: GUNI Restoration for Data Link Failure Between Routers in a Nationwide Photonic Network

A GMPLS (Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching)-based link restoration scheme with IP-routing stability for data link failure between routers through a PXC (Photonic Cross-Connect) network was proposed and successfully demonstrated in a US nationwide photonic network for the first time.

Interactive Scientific Exploration of Gyrofluid Tokamak Turbulence

This research is a part of the Numerical Tokamak Project, a national consortium of efforts to create predictive nu merical simulations of fluid plasma turbulence in tokamak fusion experiments using the most powerful supercomput ers in the world. Major progress has been made in fusion research, as demonstrated by the recent production of 10 megawatts of fusion power in the Princeton Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR). However, much research is still needed before fusion can be a commercially success ful electricity source. High-performance computing will play a profoundly important role in designing these ma chines. Realistic simulations are an important component of this research. The mission of this work is to use mas sively parallel computers to simulate the behavior of tokamak plasma and represent the results of the simula tion for scientific visualization and diagnosis. These simu lations have begun to produce results that are encourag ingly close to present experiments. As this trend continues and as current models evolve, the simulations will provide an increasingly valuable tool for optimizing the design of future tokamaks, potentially reducing their cost and in creasing the certainty of meeting their objectives.