CAVERN The CAVE Research Network Maxine D Brown

CAVERN The CAVE Research Network Maxine D. Brown Electronic Visualization Laboratory University of Illinois at Chicago

CAVE Research and Development 1992—Prototype CAVE 1993— 10’x 10’ CAVE 1994—SIGGRAPH VROOM 1995—I-WAY at SC’ 95 1997— 100 CAVES and derivatives worldwide 1997 -8—NSF funding for CAVERN and new desktop VR devices for the Grid, STAR TAP and NCSA University of Illinois at Chicago

Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) • • • 25 years at UIC Joint program: EECS and Art & Design 2 directors and 12 associated faculty 10 staff 50 graduate students (27 EVL supported) Long-time application collaborations – National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) – Argonne National Laboratory – Building the Grid together University of Illinois at Chicago

EVL Computing and Networking Facilities • 4 CAVE-sized Onyx rack computers • 2 CAVEs, 8 Immersa. Desks, many workstations, at EVL and allied UI labs • OC-3 networking to MREN, v. BNS, and STAR TAP • Access to the Grid: Very large SP 2 s, SGI’s at Argonne and NCSA and >100 CAVEs and Immersa. Desks worldwide University of Illinois at Chicago

The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure I. Foster, C. Kesselman (Eds), Morgan Kaufmann, 1999 • ISBN 1 -55860 -475 -8 • 22 chapters by expert authors including Andrew Chien, Jack Dongarra, Tom De. Fanti, Andrew Grimshaw, Roch Guerin, Kennedy, Paul Messina, Cliff Neuman, Jon Postel, Larry Smarr, Rick Stevens, and many others “A source book for the history of the future” -- Vint Cerf http: //www. mkp. com/grids University of Illinois at Chicago

Midwest Networked CAVE and Immersa. Desk Sites UIC-Chicago UIUC-Urbana Argonne NL U Wisconsin U Michigan Indiana U U Iowa State U Minnesota U of Chicago University of Illinois at Chicago

NCSA Partners Connected by the v. BNS University of Illinois at Chicago

STAR TAP: Science Technology And Research Transit Access Point The Persistent Interconnect for NGI, Internet 2, International High-Performance Networks Canada Iceland Norway Japan Korea Sweden Finland Denmark Taiwan Russia France Singapore Australia Netherlands CERN Israel University of Illinois at Chicago Source: http: //www. startap. net/topology. html

CAVERN Networks not only facilitate but seem to mandate partnerships • CAVE Research Network (CAVERN) • CAVE Research Network User’s Society (CAVERNUS) University of Illinois at Chicago

Tele-Immersion • Tele-Immersion is the merger of VR worlds and people--3 D phone calls! • For each user, Tele-Immersion needs to support: – Viewer-centered perspective – Large angle of view – Stereo – Seeing and talking to distant collaborators University of Illinois at Chicago

Why Represent People ? • Need to know relationship of people to synthetic world • To signal exchange and shared control • To communicate states of collaborators • To recognize people and tell who is talking • And, people want to be “in the picture” University of Illinois at Chicago

Two Representations of People • Video images • Synthetic models (avatars) University of Illinois at Chicago

Tele-Immersion and CAVERNsoft • Tele-Immersion requires expertise in graphics, VR, audio/video compression, networking, databases • Rapidly build new teleimmersive applications • Retro-fit old applications • CAVERNsoft enables applications! University of Illinois at Chicago

CAVERNsoft: Car Interiors Visual. Eyes worldwide General Motors Research and Hughes Research Labs University of Illinois at Chicago

Caterpillar’s Distributed Virtual Reality Data courtesy of Valerie Lehner, NCSA, 1996 University of Illinois at Chicago

CAVERNsoft: Virtual Director University of Illinois at Chicago

Requirements for Tele-Immersion • Collaborative interaction and manipulation • Communication: audio, video & avatars (virtual participants) • Synchronous and asynchronous work • Network and database quality of service • Multiple heterogeneous data streams University of Illinois at Chicago

More Requirements for Tele-Immersion • • • Flexible connectivity High level modules for developers Performance monitoring Recordability Trans-oceanic capability Cultural sensitivity (e. g. , avatar gesture translators) University of Illinois at Chicago

CAVERNsoft Case Studies NICE—an educational environment University of Illinois at Chicago

CAVERNsoft Case Studies Virtual Temporal Bone UIC Virtual Reality Medicine Lab University of Illinois at Chicago

CAVERNsoft Case Studies V-Mail Virtual Trainer A tool for asynchronous collaboration University of Illinois at Chicago

i. Grid: The International Grid Research Demonstrations, SC’ 98 • 22 demonstrations that featured technical innovations and application advancements requiring high-speed networks, with emphasis on distributed computing, tele-immersion, large datasets, remote instrumentation, and collaboration • 10 countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, USA University of Illinois at Chicago

International Applications-Level Networking Issues • Building relationships • Time zones – Asynchronous collaboration – Annotations and recording • • Network speeds / Qo. S needs Speed of light Audio Culture University of Illinois at Chicago

SC’ 98 i. Grid Industrial Mold Filling Indiana University (USA), Argonne National Laboratory (USA), Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA), Industrial Materials Institute, NRC (Canada), Centre de Recherche en Calcul Appliqué (Canada) University of Illinois at Chicago

SC’ 98 i. Grid 3 D Magneto Hydrodynamic Equations Sandia National Laboratories (USA), Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (USA), High Performance Computing Center, a division of the Computing Center of Stuttgart University (Germany) University of Illinois at Chicago

SC’ 98 i. Grid Telebot and Einstein Spacetime University of Illinois at Chicago (USA) Max Planck Institut fuer Gravitationphysik, Albert Einstein Institut (Germany), NCSA (USA), Argonne National Laboratory (USA), Washington University (USA) University of Illinois at Chicago

SC’ 98 i. Grid Taiwan Numerical Wind Tunnel National Center for High Performance Computing (Taiwan), National Cheng Kung University (Taiwan), National Chioa-Tung University (Taiwan) University of Illinois at Chicago

SC’ 98 i. Grid—The Netherlands Parallel Lighting Simulation SARA: Academic Computing Services Amsterdam (The Netherlands) University of Illinois at Chicago

Impact: Five Years From Now • Tele-immersion and data mining over high speed networks will be routine; audio, video, gesture and haptics will be integrated with latency tolerant techniques • Methods for recording, editing, annotating, replaying, and broadcasting tele-immersive sessions will be perfected; avatars will help convey a true sense of tele-presence University of Illinois at Chicago

International Impact • Tele-immersion is particularly critical for trans-oceanic science and engineering users • Implementation is particularly difficult and challenging as distance increases • Significant participation expected by international researchers via STAR TAP, given support for applications development University of Illinois at Chicago

For More Information Websites • www. evl. uic. edu/cavern • www. ncsa. uiuc. edu/VR/cavernus • www. startap. net University of Illinois at Chicago