Back to IEEE VR 2008 Tutorials

Designing multi-projector VR systems: from bits to bolts

Sunday March 9th, 8:30am - 12:00pm noon (half-day)
Silver Legacy Resort Casino
Reno, Nevada

Presenters: Luciano P. Soares, Miguel S. Dias, Joaquim A. Jorge, Alberto B. Raposo, Bruno R. de Araujo

Abstract

Immersive multi-projection environments are becoming affordable for many research centers, but these solutions need several integration steps to be fully operational; some of these steps are difficult and not in a common domain. This tutorial presents the most recent techniques involved in multi-projection solutions, from projection to computer cluster software. The hardware in these VR installations is a connection of projectors, screens, speakers, computers and tracking devices. The tutorial will introduce hardware options, explaining their advantages and disadvantages. We will cover software design and open source tools available, and how to administrate the whole solution, with tasks such as installing the computer cluster and configuring the graphical outputs. An introduction to tracking systems, explaining how electromagnetic and optical trackers work, will be also provided. At the end, we are going to present important design decisions in real cases: the project process, problems encountered, good and bad points in each decision.

Intended Audience

This tutorial intends to be basic. Basic knowledge of computer graphics and virtual reality is enough. The tutorial will cover all points present in detail so any student or professional can follow.

Presenters' Background

Luciano Pereira Soares holds PhD in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic School, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He just arrived from Post-doc positions at IST in Portugal, at INRIA in France and ISCTE in Portugal. His research interests include real-time 3D computer graphics and cluster computing. Specifically, he is studying techniques to drive immersive virtual environments using distributed systems. He is currently researcher at the Computer Graphics Technology Group (Tecgraf), Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro working in several projects at Petrobras. He worked as support engineer at Silicon Graphics and as project manager at the Integrated Systems Laboratory. In 2002 and 2003 he presented at Siggraph tutorials about commodity cluster for virtual reality and at IEEE-VR the Introductory course in the Commodity Clusters for Virtual Reality Workshop. (http://www.lsi.usp.br/~lsoares/)

José Miguel Salles Dias holds a PhD (1998) in Sciences and Information Technologies, field of Computer Graphics and Multimedia, at ISCTE, Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa, Lisbon. He received a MSc degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, area of Electronics, (1988) and BEng in Electrical Engineering, field of Telecommunications and Electronics (1985), both from ISTUTL, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa. He is Director of MLDC, Microsoft Language Development Center (since November 2005), a Microsoft Development Center. He is appointed as Associated Professor of the Department of Sciences and Information Technologies at ISCTE. He was President of ADETTI, Associação para o Desenvolvimento das das Telecomunicações e Técnicas de Informática, R+D Associate Centre to ISCTE, Vice-President of ADETTI, Coordinator of Multimedia and Virtual Environments and Networks and Information Security, Research Lines of Lectures undergraduates and graduates at ISCTE in various courses such as Computer Graphics and Augmented Reality. He is the Vice-President of the Eurographics Portuguese Chapter and he is member of several Programme Committees of National and International conferences in Computer Graphics, Virtual and Augmented Reality. (http://www.adetti.iscte.pt/)

Joaquim A. Jorge holds PhD and MSc degrees in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy New York, awarded in 1995 and 1992 respectively, and a BSEE degree from Instituto Superior Tecnico at Universidade Tecnica de Lisboa, Portugal in 1984. His research interests include calligraphic and multimodal user interfaces and visual environments. He is currently Associate Professor of Computer Grasphics and Multimedia at the Department of Information Systems and Computer Engineering at the Instituto Superior Tecnico. He has co-authored over 110 internationally refereed papers on Computer Graphics and User Interfaces. Prof. Jorge is a member of the Eurographics Association and is also affiliated with ACM (SM'07) SIGGRAPH and SIGCHI and is National Representative to IFIP TC13. He has served on the International Program Committees of over 100 international conferences and has organized or helped organize over 25 international scientific events. He is Editor-in-Chief of Computers & Graphics Journals and serves on the Editorial Boards of five other scientific publications, including Computer Graphics Forum. (http://web.ist.utl.pt/jorgej/)

Alberto Raposo holds PhD and MSc degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Campinas, Brazil. He is currently a professor at the Computer Science Department at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and coordinates the Virtual Reality group at the Computer Graphics Technology Group (Tecgraf) in the same university. His research interests include 3D interaction techniques, real-time visualization of massive models, augmented reality, and collaborative environments. He has co-authored more than 80 refereed publications. (http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/~abraposo)

Bruno Rodrigues De Araújo is a PhD Student at the Instituto Superior Tecnico from the Technical University of Lisbon. Since 2001, he is a researcher at INESC-ID and in 2002, he joined the Intelligent MultiModal Interfaces Group. He participated on several European Projects such as SMARTSKETCHES researching advanced interaction techniques for 3D surfacing using Calligraphic interfaces and the IMPROVE project proposing innovative interfaces for immersive and mixed reality environments such as large scales displays. He is particularly interested in large scale display based visualization using PC cluster and multi-projector systems, and participated in the LEME (Laboraty in Mobility and Excellence) at Instituto Superior Técnico/TagusPark related with intelligent ambient and tiled display visualization technology. Under the scope of this new lab, he contributed for the design and setup of a complete visualization system using 12 projectors. (http://immi.inesc-id.pt/~brar/)