Mark your calendars for April 22, for the Graduate Education and Research Services (GEaRS) Visualization and Virtual Reality Open House. The event will showcase three large-format, projection-based facilities that have been designed for visualization, virtual reality and telecollaborative applications within a variety of teaching and research contexts in science, engineering and the arts.
The ITS/SALA Immersive Environments Lab (IEL), in 306 Engineering Unit C, is a partnership project of
ITS/GEaRS Visualization Group and the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. The lab recently has been
upgraded from a two-screen facility to a three-screen surround-screen virtual reality theater. The IEL provides access
to navigable large-format 3D stereo displays within a familiar desktop computing and applications environment. See
http://gears.aset.psu.edu/viz/projects/vr/iel for more information on the lab.
The GEaRS ACCESS Grid Node, located in 140 Computer Building, allows group to group telecollaborative meetings using multicast internetworking, voice and video teleconferencing, and desktop applications sharing among multiple remotely located participants. See http://gears.aset.psu.edu/viz/projects/gridnode/ for further information on Penn State's ACCESS Grid node and links to further information on the ACCESS Grid.
The GEaRS tiled display wall project, located in 139 Computer Building, employs parallel graphics computing on a linux cluster to efficiently display high-resolution (4096 x 2304 pixels) images on a large format (six by eleven feet) projection screen. The tiled display allows the viewing of significant detail within local areas of complex visualizations, while simultaneously displaying the larger context within which such local events occur. Parallel graphics techniques employed on the display wall are adaptable to a number of application areas and display configurations. See http://gears.aset.psu.edu/viz/projects/displaywall/ for further information on the display wall project.
More information on the Visualization and Virtual Reality Open House, including schedules for each location, will be available online at http://gears.aset.psu.edu/events/. The event will be free and open to the public. All facilities are available for scheduled use by researchers and educators from any academic department of the University.
