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v3.3.3-pre
Virtual reality (VR) is becoming a much more affordable and routine technology, increasing its availability and usefulness for science. This talk will describe three challenges where VR-related solutions could provide benefits to large-scale experiments such as the LHC.
The first challenge concerns providing a virtual model of a large-scale, inaccessible facility, for example for the general public to experience the facility remotely. This challenge involves effectively acquiring a large 3D model of the facility. Two methods of acquiring 3D models of large, complicated interior spaces will be discussed: a commercially-available solution using a laser range finder and calibrated camera and a research system using an uncalibrated freely-moving video camera.
The second challenge concerns how to create a convincing virtual environment for a very large facility. User studies showing the importance of 'static haptics' and locomotion by walking in virtual environments will be presented, along with a method of 'redirected walking' that enables exploring virtual spaces much larger than the physical space used.
The third challenge concerns how to comprehend output from a complex experiment, which requires effective display of many variables. The best ways to display multiple scalar and vector fields on surfaces will be presented, and the promising but ultimately unfruitful methods that have been tested in the course of finding optimum solutions will be discussed.
Russell Taylor is a Research Associate Professor of Computer Science, Physics & Astronomy, and Applied & Materials Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the co-director of the <http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/nano/cismm>UNC NIH National Research Resource for Computer Integrated Systems for Microscopy and Manipulation (come visit!).
His research interests include Scientific Visualization, Distributed Virtual Worlds, Haptic Display, and Interactive 3D Computer Graphics. All of these come together in his role as the director of the computer science team in the UNC <http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/nano>Nanoscale Science Research Group, which is a team of Physicists, Chemists, Gene Therapists, Biologists, Library Scientists, Perceptual Psychologists, and Computer Scientists working together to develop improved interfaces for scanned-probe and other microscopes. See <file://www.cs.unc.edu/~taylorr>www.cs.unc.edu/~taylorr.