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Immersive environments: Seeing, hearing, and navigating complex datasets

VISUAL | July 2, 2014

Research shows that exploring complex, multi-dimensional data in immersive environments can yield insights that traditional methods of study may not otherwise produce, insights that are critical for advances in many areas of science and engineering.

Seeing, hearing, ‘feeling’, and navigating data are all essential elements that come together to produce a truly immersive experience. Feature-rich visualizations, however, often entail so much data that traditional computing environments are easily overwhelmed.

Creating richer and more compelling visualizations continues to be national priority in the US — especially for science, engineering, and new media research.

The AlloSphere, a 33-foot (9-meter) diameter sphere built inside a three-story, nearly echo-free cube, allows for synthesis, manipulation, exploration, and analysis of large-scale data sets in an immersive virtual environment. Image courtesy California Nanosystems Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, US, and Paul Wellman.

Visually representing large data sets in the AlloSphere. Image courtesy California Nanosystems Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, US, and Kevin Steele.

Connectome application displayed in the Electronic Visualization Lab's CAVE2, at the University of Illinois in Chicago, US. Image courtesy Electronic Visualization Lab and L. Long.

CAVE2 is a circular room, 24 feet (7 meters) in diameter, and roughly 7 feet (2 meters) high, comprised of 18 columns of four, 46-inch (116-centimeter) LCD screens. Image courtesy University of Illinois, Chicago, US, Electronic Visualization Lab and L. Long.

Researchers get up close and personal in the StarCAVE with a model from the Protein Data Bank. To create a fully immersive experience, the five-walled StarCAVE has 70 monitors (287 million pixels). Image courtesy California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology at the University of California, San Diego, US.

- Amber Harmon