What is the Virtual Reality Theater, and how does it compare to the CAVE?
The Computer Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) was an immersive virtual reality technology consisting of an 8'x8'x8' structure with high-resolution, stereoscopic images projected onto three walls and the floor, a tracking system for the user's head and hand, and an SGI graphics supercomputer (Onyx2). Until it was retired in 2006, the CAVE was installed at Lindley Hall at Indiana University Bloomington.
A similar but superior immersive technology, the BARCO MOVE Lite Virtual Reality (VR) Theater, is now installed in IT 403 at IUPUI. The VR Theater has brighter, higher-resolution projectors than the CAVE, and two of its three rear-projection walls are movable, so it can be reconfigured for group-scaled viewing. The VR Theater is useful for many visualization projects; the technology runs on SGI/Irix, Linux, and Windows systems.
For more, see the AVL home page, or contact the AVL.
Last modified on November 09, 2011.







