MRI: Development of OmegaTable and OmegaDesk - Instruments for Interactive Visual Data Exploration and Collaboration

University Of Illinois At Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal #: CNS 08-21121 PI(s): Leigh, Jason Brown, Maxine D.; Johnson, Andre E.; Renambot, Luc Institution: University of Illinois - Chicago Chicago, IL 60612-7227 Title: MRI/Dev.: Dev. of OmegaTable and OmegaDesk ? Instruments for Interactive Visual Data Exploration and Collaboration Project Proposed: This project, developing instruments for interactive visual data exploration and visualization, provides a powerful, easy-to-use information-rich cyberinfrastructure instrumentation in support of scientific discovery. Advanced visualization instruments serve as the eyepieces of a telescope or microscope, enabling researchers to view their data in cyberspace, and better manage the increased scale and complexity of accessing and analyzing the data. The OmegaTable and OmegaDesk are such eyepieces. The former supports multiple users sitting or standing around a table, and the latter is a single-user device that will ultimately replace the desk in one?s office. Both unify ultra-high resolution computer-enhanced collaboration workspaces and autostereoscopic virtual environments with multi-touch-sensitive surfaces so that users can intuitively point, write, touch, and manipulate the information displayed, and communicate and share this information with remote colleagues. These instruments act as digital assistants, anticipating and enabling those who work with them, benefiting global scientific collaboratories as well as providing a foundation for new computer science research. For the Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL) at UIC, these instruments represent the culmination of decades of experience and expertise developing immersive environments, from the room-size CAVE in the early 1990s, to the office-sized Immersa Desk in 1994, to GeoWall in 2000, and the more recent ultra-high resolution Lambda Vision tiled display wall and autosteoscopic Varrier tiled-display wall. Each new generation of display technology provides some advanced features ? higher resolution, unencumbered autostereoscopic viewing, multi-Gigabit network connectivity, and intuitive user interfaces - better coupling worldwide scientific virtual organizations, and better integrating scientific workplaces with advanced cyberinfrastructure. OmegaTable and OmegaDesk combine all this functionality in one set of instruments, enabling communities to view and share high-resolution 2D, 2.5D, and 3D stereoscopic imagery over distance and to manipulate the imagery with an intuitive touch interface. The most unique capability lies in their ability to display 2D and 3D stereoscopic imagery simultaneously, without users needing to wear 3D glasses of head-tracking equipment. The instruments open new opportunities in virtual reality, human-computer interaction, high-speed networking, scientific visualization, and Grid computing. Broader Impacts: This project enables state-of-the-art equipment, opportunities, and supervision to enhance student education (providing scientific communities with highly integrated virtual-reality collaboration environments), to work with industry to commercialize new technologies that advance science and engineering, and to continue on-going partnerships with domain scientists world-wide. In addition to enhancing education, the instrument provides summer internships and enables jobs upon graduation. Society as a whole has much to gain by the possibilities to solve complex environmental, medical, and economic issues that these instruments offer.