Computer Graphics World

February 2009 28 n n n n Visualization applications, but the imagery didn't look photoreal. at's where RTT Europe has put a lot of its efforts. "Reality is on the priority list of our clients," he notes. e same sentiment was echoed last year at the E-Magiciens conference held in Valenciennes, France, where Philippe Delvigne, director of the Industrial De- sign School (ISD), noted that the prog- ress of 3D visualization and virtual real- ity was happening faster in Europe than in the US through the development of consortiums and centers for visualiza- tion, rather than big, proprietary sys- tems. Delvigne points to the PerfVR ef- fort, a collaboration to create standards for 3D visualization that would make the use of visualization centers easier. Silicon Graphics (SGI), of course, is still in the game, and is also getting a lot of business in Europe (see "SGI Returns to Software," pg. 32). Bob Pette, vice president of the visu- al business unit at SGI, says there tends to be far more small visualization centers through- out Europe than elsewhere. He notes that one of the largest efforts on this front was by CEA/DAM, a consortium spearheaded by the French Atomic Energy Commission. e group has built the CEA/DAM Ile de France Center in Bruyères le Châtel. is center is devoted to simulation and environ- mental surveillance, and is part of an effort to extend technology to other industries. Even in Europe, that spirit of collabora- tion is shifting somewhat. "Security con- cerns," Pette says, "are causing groups to build larger centers for their own use." And, it's worth adding that those uses are increas- ingly specific. In France, Airbus has built an enor- mous CAVE to mimic the inside of the Airbus A380 main deck. e CAVE is 7.5 meters wide, 3 meters deep, and 3 meters high. It is built using 16 Christie projec- tors—four projectors each illuminate the ceiling, back wall, and floor; two projec- tors are used for each of the two smaller side panels. Projects are stacked to create a stereo pair for each channel. e CAVE was built by Viscon, which also supplied the VisController II software to match up the images into a seamless, uniform image. RTT and VRcom sup- plied the software to produce the images. e CAVE gives visitors the feeling of be- ing inside the A380 Airbus: It can demon- strate color schemes and change the seat arrangement for customers. e company is also interested in using the CAVE for en- gineering and ergonomics studies. Multiuser Sites? In the US, the visualization industry is be- ing driven by the oil and gas industries. In oil and gas, there is little enthusiasm for sharing systems with outsiders. Neverthe- less, Norwegian company Cyviz opened the Cyviz Technology Center (CTC) in Houston last May. e facility follows Cyviz's original CTC, which opened in Norway the previous year. e company is also building a new CTC in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Cyviz plans to host custom- ers at the centers as well as use the locales as showcases for the company's technology. e center in Norway has three auditori- ums and a conference room, and relies pri- marily on power-wall designs that range in resolution from 3.7 to 6.3 megapixels. Like Viscon, Cyviz supplies the software technol- ogy to create a seamless image from multiple computers, and the company works with different partners to build the system ac- cording to the customer's requirements. Projector companies Christie and Barco are especially active in this field, along with Hewlett-Packard, which provides the com- puters for many of these systems, including those at the Cyviz CTCs. e real trick in visualization is in getting the data from the systems onto screens in such a way that the imagery lines up and the colors are perfect- ly balanced so the illusion is not broken. In theory, Headwave's customers are the type of people who might use one of Cyviz's centers, but Steve Briggs, vice president of systems integration, has his doubts. Head- wave has developed compression technol- ogy that enables it to present enormous amounts of data to the user. e data gath- ered for oil and gas exploration is extremely dense—scientists might be looking through 7000 feet of water and 20,000 feet into the earth, as they were in the Gulf of Mexico when the enormous Jack Field discovery was made in 2006. As Briggs observes, "We're staring at tens of terabytes of data." In this business, mistakes cost money— and lots of it. A deep-water oil rig costs HP, in conjunction with DreamWorks, developed the Halo system so executives can collaborate without technology getting in the way. With zero latency and high-definition resolution, partici- pants soon forget they're not in the same room with one another.

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