New CAVE Design

Hept-Cave Design Wiki

This page serves as a repository of the design issues, knowledge, and decisions for the new Brown Cave funded through an NSF grant from 2009-2013.

Design Goals

• 20/30 resolution (== 100dpi desktop monitor?); 20/20 would be a real coup, if possible -- "retina cave"
• 360° FOV (vertical sufaces plus ceiling and floor)
• seamless; this likely implies overlapped rear projection and rounded corners
• stereo
• contrast and brightness comparable to today's conventional desktop computer
• design must accomodate 3D tracking (ergonomic, "versatile", full-volume, high-accuracy, low-latency, head+hand+props+fingers+feet)
• equipment (hardware plus construction) budget of $1M
• all parts available for order by 9/30/10
• avoid technology unnecessary for primary goals (unless it can change the primary goals)
• easy to program
• supports commercial software solutions
• reliable, i.e., high uptime

Some questions that should probably migrate to the "Design Issues to Resolve" section:

• Q: is it 8' cube again? what are pros/cons of larger/smaller display?
• Q: Is the software that will drive the display a constraint on complexity of the hardware? how many machines will drive display? 50? does VRG3D and/or other software scale trivially to expected # of machines that will drive it?

Charge to jvr, sgf, jh for Aug 2010 design-a-thon

The charge for the first two weeks of August is based on the two deadlines that our NSF program officer has explicitly asked for updates on:

1. 8/15 draft revised Cave design with feasible, existing hardware
2. 9/30 final revised Cave design

John, you are the boss for the purposes of creating a document in response to this charge. For 8/6 (next Friday) I would like to see at least one and not more than four sketches of designs with proposed specific technologies. Any proposed technology must have at least one example of a product on the market that can be used to instantiate it. For each of these tentative designs, I would like an estimate of the various factors that define the design goals: accuity (e.g., 20/30 and dpi), contrast, brightness, FOV, cost, implementation complexity, programming complexity, ease-of-commercial-software use, reliability. For some of these, a letter grade may be fine. For others, reasonable units would be best. For this stage, back-of-the-envelope estimates are fine -- there are only 4 days to do it, after all.

On Friday, 8/6, I would like us to have a shootout of the designs, with selection of a (proper) subset (or perhaps hybrid?) to refine.

The effort should culminate the following Friday, 8/13/10, in a draft design that satisfies NSF's deadline: specific display hardware and estimates of the qualities of the result.

Example design sketch for 1998 Cave

four 800x800 XXX projectors 3 rear-projected 8'x8' walls front-projected floor

Eval: accuity 8.3 dpi,

Weekly Cave action items

Below is a list of action items for each Cave design meeting.

• Action Items for Sept. 15th, 2009
• Action Items for Sept. 22nd, 2009
• Action Items for Sept. 29th, 2009
• Action Items for Oct. 27th, 2009

Initial Design Issues

University facility

• Problem: What are the requirements for University researchers in general?
• Input needed
  • Interview existing Cave-users and potential Cave-users to consider needs/requirements
• Experiments needed
  • (None?)
• Decision: ?

Display Surface Angles

Assigned to DHL. Updates are due by 12:00 noon on 9/14.

• Problem: What are the consequences of display surface angles and/or curvature (horizontal and vertical angles may be different)?
• Input needed
  • Expert feedback from Acevedo re KAUST design choices
• Experiments needed
  • Set up two side-by-side and top/bottom displays and evaluate anecdotally
• Decision: ?

Blending/Butting at Display Boundaries

Assigned to SGF. Updates are due on 9/14 by 12:00 noon

• Problem: What are the consequences of tiling displays together?
• Input needed
  • Expert feedback from sites with tiled displays like the ones we'll use (Calit2, Disney, KAUST)
• Experiments needed
  • Setup 2 displays and report on artifacts at edge between them (color, geometry)
• Decision: ?

Will commodity DLP projection technology work

• Problem: Are commodity DLP projection technologies high-enough quality & reliable for a next-gen Cave?
• Input needed
  • An understanding of how much effort Mark Mine et al. at Disney have put in
  • What is Mark's estimate on how much more time/effort it will take to have a high-quality display
  • standard desktop text does not look good on Mitsubishi HDTVs. Is that a "show stopper"?
  • Why is a projector-based system worse than HDTV approach?
• Experiments needed
  • ?
• Decision: ?

Text with Checkerboard Stereo

Assigned to JH. Updates are due by 12:00 noon on Monday, 9/14.

• Problem: What text resolution will be usable with checkerboard stereo and will that level be sufficient to do the experiments and applications that we want to do?
• Input needed
  • Expert feedback from sites already experimenting with the displays we'll use (Calit2, Disney, KAUST)
• Experiments needed
  • Compare visual angle of smallest comfortable text on desktop display versus on checkerboard stereo display.
• Decision: ?

=== Floor Design === Assigned to SGF. Updates are due by 12:00 noon on Monday, 9/14.

Treadmill Options

( not Omni-directional) Assigned to SGF. Updates are due by 12:00 noon on Monday, 9/14.

Fixed wall design, or can it unfold into a powerwall?

Assigned to SGF. Updates are due by 12:00 noon on Monday, 9/14.

Ceiling Value, and Design Options

Assigned to SGF. Updates are due by 12:00 noon on Monday, 9/14.

Contracting to an Integrator

Assigned to SGF. Updates are due by 12:00 noon on Monday, 9/14.

• Problem: Would contracting to an integrator to build based on an RFP be effective?
• Input:
  • Phone feedback from some of the potential integrators
• Decision:

3D Tracking options

Assigned to JH. Updates are due by 12:00 noon on Monday, 9/14.

• Problem: Would camera-based tracking be a value or time-sink for the Cave?
• Input:
  • Talk with people using camera-based tracking (Calit2, Disney, KAUST, Lit3D, Iowa State, UNC?, ..)
• Experiments needed:
  • Try first hand most promising camera-based tracking and document:
    • the degree to which it is: wireless, accurate, low-latency, unobtrusive
    • the degree to which it provides: head-tracking, wand-tracking, tracking of fingers/feet/body, tracking of "phicons"/props
• Decision: ?

Hardware supporting usability studies

Assigned to ASF. Updates are due by 12:00 noon on Monday, 9/14.

• Problem: is special hardware needed to support evaluation of Cave-like systems (e.g., devices that measure galvanic skin response (GSR))?
• Input needed
  • Advice from Mel Slater (How does Mel decide when GSR, etc. is important? How expensive is the system?)
  • Mel says, "[we use] a device called Nexus 4, which has skin conductance, ECG, respiration, and can also be used for EMG and EEG. I think that it is of the order of 10K or less depending on how many channels are used.".
  • VRPN supports some GSR device -- Russ Taylor says to check with Mary Whitton to learn more
  • Consider whether results from future (or past) studies would be significantly improved with such devices?
    • asf thoughts (may be wrong!): GSR helps detects changes in a person's "comfort"-- this might reflect the level of frustration or happiness while evaluating some user interaction or visualization method that the person doesn't verbalize; that may be useful additional information for formal studies. PTSD studies would benefit from the information, I should think. However, if the device requires stringing wires all around, it might cause subjects to behave differently which would be bad.
• Experiments needed
  • none
• Decision: ?

Software: commercial quality

Assigned to JH. Updates are due by 12:00 noon on Monday, 9/14.

• Problem: What do we need to do to make sure that commercial software will be usable in our new facility?
• Input:
  • Feedback from some of the software players (Avizo/Amira, Ensight, OpenSceneGraph, ParaView)
• Experiments:
  • try visualizing Leopold Grinberg's arterial branch dataset (we don't have easy tool for it right now, but want one!)
  • << who else on campus has wanted to visualize data but we didn't have a tool to do it-- use as case study >>
• Decision:

Software: researcher/developer tools

• Cave Software Overview
• VRG3D Requirements

• Vis 2009 discussion dfk/dhl/asf

Schedule, Timeline, and Deliverables

Assigned to SGF. Updates are due by 12:00 noon on Monday, 9/14.

The following describes our schedule, timeline, and deliverables using absolute months into the project (months 0-11 is year 1, months 12-23 is year 2, etc.).

Upcoming Trip to Californina

• Agenda and action items for Disney Imagineering
• Agenda and action items for CALLIT2

Year 1 (0.50 hw-person FTE +consulting)

We will finalize hardware decisions which will involve evaluating changes in availability since proposal submission; demonstrations of competing manufacturer’s equipment; consultation regarding details of acquiring, machining, and integrating elements; and ordering the central display equipment (projectors, screen material, computers, trackers). The new equipment will be received late in the year. Through a process that minimizes system downtime, the 1998 Cave will be taken down and removed.

• Acquire test projection system(s) (month 1)
• Acquire test graphics system(s) (month 1)
• Acquire test tracking system(s) (month 1)
• multi-site visit, design discussions, consultent visits (month 1 - month 3)
• finalize refined design (due month 3, 1.5 hw-person mos)
• order additional wall/test equipment (month 2)
• Begin build on test tiled display wall (month 3 - month 6, 1.0 hw-person mo)
• order Cave equipment (due month 5, 1.0 hw-person mos) screens; projectors;computer parts, racks; computer interconnect; computer-display connections; display-display interconnections; display calibration hardware/software; tracking hardware.
• receive equipment (due month 8, 0.5 hw-person mos)
• computer cluster assembled (due month 11, 1 hw-person mo) machine/construct/assemble computer supports; assemble computer hw with high-speed interconnect; install and test OS on cluster
• raised floor and other site preparations complete (due month 11, 1.0 hw-person mo)
• Install replacement tile wall, temporary system (month 11)
• remove 1998 Cave (due at least disruptive time in year 1 TBD, 0.5 hw-person mo)

Year 2: (0.67 hw-person FTE, 0.58 swe-person FTE)

In year 2 we will complete construction of the display, bring computer systems online, install TGS’s Avizo and our own VRG3D software, and begin testing individual and linked systems.

• display hardware (due month 20, 4.5 hw-person mos, +machining/fab), (will start in year 1) detailed screen support specifications; detailed monitor support specifications; machine and construct screen supports; machine and construct projector platforms; mount screens and projectors; rough-calibrate projectors
• display-computer interconnect (due month 20, 0.5 hw-person mo)
• tracker system(s) (due month 20, 2-4 hw-person mos) install and test; calibrate; create hooks for monitoring and testing
• VRG3D display software library (due month 23, 6 swe-person mos) source-control setup; ability to distribute software configurable for arbitrary multi-display devices; implemented for new display configuration; multi-display optimizations incorporated; tracking incorporated; hooks for automated testing incorporated
• install Avizo (due month 23, 1 swe-person mos)

Year 3 (0.63 hw-person FTE, 0.63 swe-person FTE)

Monitoring and testing reliability software will be designed, developed, and deployed. Application users and developers will be able to begin using the system.

• VRG3D-based example application (due month 26, 2 swe-person mos) identify additional problems with library
• distribution version of VRG3D available (due month 30, 1 swe-person mos)
• application users can now begin creating new applications
• monitoring/testing reliability software (due month 30, 2 hw-person mos, 4.5 swe-person mos) daily builds of software library and application; daily tests of machine accessibility (tracking, compute cluster functionality/performance, display device availability); touchscreen display of component status/availability; touchscreen access to troubleshooting options; easily extensible touchscreen interface for startup of (experiments, applications, demos, homework assignments) item displayfacet alignment system (due month 35, 5.5 hw-person mos)

Year 4 (0.17 hw-person FTE, 0.33 swe-person FTE)

In year 4 we will finalize the software infrastructure, complete the auto-calibration system.

• software library changes (due month 36, 2 hw-person mos, 3 swe-person mos)

(note that these are not maintenance, but part of the development process); feature request from specific application areas; application users will change apps to use them

• final software distributions to SourceForge (due month 47, 1 swe-person mos)