Scientists Develop Holodeck For Use In Research
We are one step closer to living Lt. Barclay’s and every Star Trek fan’s dream. Scientists from the University of Illinois have created CAVE2, a 320-degree, 3D virtual panorama composed of 72 LCD screens. Standing inside the display and donning special 3D glasses fitted with tracking markers projects you into any 3D environment designed for the system. One can also use a “wand” device to control and manipulate the virtual environment. Pay no mind that one of the first things visitors see when they visit CAVE2 is a recreation of the Enterprise’s bridge; this is a place of serious science!
“A lot of what we create is really inspired by the science fiction we used to watch when we were kids,” Jason Leigh, Director of Chicago’s Electronic Visualization Laboratory, explained to The Telegraph. The one-to-one recreation of the famous bridge is one of the few ways the scientists demonstrate the system, but more practical applications are on the horizon. Researchers can use the system to explore neural clusters in the brain, walk on planets and view how proteins react with chemical compounds. Mechdyne Corp., an Iowa-based firm specializing in visual information technology, has licensed the system and intends to market it to the military, medical, and energy sectors.
CAVE2 isn’t without its detractors. The size and expense of the system have some wondering if it’ll really catch on. Henry Fuchs, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, called CAVE2 a “national treasure,” but says that other innovations such as Google Glass may be a more practical solution for medical research. For brain surgeon Ali Alaraj, though, it was still a mind-blowing experience. “You can walk between the blood vessels … You can look at the arteries from below. You can look at the arteries from the side…. That was science fiction for me.”
It’s amazing to see someone do a flyover of Mars based on real data collected from NASA. Someone standing inside a virtual hurricane or getting down and dirty inside a virtualization of the human body to plan out a surgical method is something straight out of episodes of Next Generation. One can only imagine what it would be like to have one of these things in the living room. Forza and porn would never be the same ever again.
