Immersive Visualization - Panoram Status

Academic Leaders: Bill Hodgkiss (SIO), Eric Frost (SDSU), Graham Kent (SIO), John Orcutt (SIO), Frank Vernon (SIO)

Industry Leaders: Cox Communications, Panoram Technologies, SGI, TeraBurst Networks

Calit² is developing an optically connected immersive visualization system to share the immersive experience among multiple sites via high-bandwidth optical networking. We plan to link systems to each other and integrate wireless input and output of critical data.

Visualization systems are becoming widely used in businesses, like the oil-and-gas industry, and command-and-control sites used in shipbuilding and defense applications. as a component of high-bandwidth optical connectivity. Such systems are also being built for entertainment, performing arts, and sports applications. They enhance the more traditional "visualization" experience with spatialized sound and sub-sonic sound (vibration) to impart broad-scale cognition and experience. By incorporating three-dimensional, stereoscopic capabilities with a large-screen format (18 feet and larger), immersive systems can enable groups to work together to make critical decisions and greatly improve productivity because the participants can examine and experience the data together.

Remote-sensing applications where the Earth's surface can be imaged, put into stereoscopic view, and moved and rotated to provide the appropriate views will provide the first scientific
drivers of the systems we're implementing. Integrating studies of the Earth's oceans, atmosphere, and land in an Earth Systems Science approach will enable development of databases for studying water, snow pack, coastal processes, environmental management, and large-scale movement of the many components of the Earth system. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) is taking the lead on this endeavor. A second system is being implemented at SDSU.

Integrating wireless input and output from the system will enable us to develop applications in crisis management, such as for earthquakes and fires that will be based on sharing of large data sets and visualizations from one site to the next. These data sets will be transportable only by high-bandwidth optical devices and computers capable of large optical output.