SD&A 2017: Interactive computer graphics, stereo and VR practice...
This presentation was delivered at the 28th annual Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference (30 January – 1 February 2017) held in Burlingame, CA USA.
Title: Interactive computer graphics, stereo and VR practice at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory University of Illinois at Chicago (SD&A-106)
Speaker: Daniel Sandin
Biography: Daniel J. Sandin is an internationally recognized pioneer of electronic art and visualization. He is director emeritus of the Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL) and a professor emeritus in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Currently Sandin is a visiting senior research scientist at EVL at UIC and a Virtual Reality research consultant at CALIT2 Institute at the University of California at San Diego. As an artist, he has exhibited worldwide, and has received grants in support of his work from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His video animation "Spiral PTL" is in the inaugural collection of video art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1969, Sandin developed a computer-controlled light and sound environment called "Glow Flow" at the Smithsonian Institution and was invited to join the art faculty at the University of Illinois the same year. By 1973, he had developed the Sandin Image Processor, a highly-programmable analog computer for processing video images in real time. He then worked with Tom DeFanti to combine the Image Processor with real-time computer graphics and performed visual concerts, the Electronic Visualization Events, with synthesized musical accompaniment. In 1991, Sandin, DeFanti and Carolina Cruz-Neira developed the CAVE virtual reality (VR) theater. In 2007 Sandin received the IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award. Sandin went on to develop of a series of VR display systems including Varier, a stereo VR display that does not require 3D glasses and CAVE2 a large (20ft) cylindrical display using LCD displays. Sandin is particularly interested in the creation of network based tele-collaborative VR art works which involve video camera image materials, rich human interaction and mathematical systems.
Abstract: The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) was founded by Tom DeFanti and Dan Sandin in 1973 at The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). From the beginning it operated as a computer graphics media production facility, combining the talents of artists and scientists for science, science education and art production. In the following 42 years EVL has developed a number stereo, autostereo and VR technologies. In 1991 the students and faculty at EVL created the CAVE virtual reality system. Part of the motivation for developing the CAVE was to address significant limitations of HMDs of that time period. Many of these limitations are still with us in the current systems. The presentation will discuss by example some of the affordances and limitations of HMDs and screen-based VR.
© 2017, Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T).