Research & Engineering Case Studies
The Decision Theater at Arizona State University
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Arizona State University’s Decision Theater
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The Decision Theater is an advanced visualization environment that enables policymakers and others to see in rich, three-dimensional presentations the results of their actions. The theater features three screens to form a 260-degree, immersive environment, allowing researchers to study and communicate the effects of policy decisions with a large degree of freedom and creativity.
CAVETM (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment)
The CAVE™ is a virtual immersive environment that allows the user to interact with stereo projected images, which are driven by multiple image processors from modern graphics engines. Typically, one or two image processors or graphics engines, are needed for each projected wall in the CAVE. InterSense's IS-900 tracking system is designed specifically to interface with these graphics engines providing real-time viewpoint (head tracking) and pointing device (tracked wand) feedback for users interacting in these visually immersive environments.
Pioneered by the University of Illinois at Chicago/Electronic Visualization Laboratory (UIC/EVL), several other universities, including the Iowa State's Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC), and Virginia Tech's VTCave, have been instrumental to the development of the both the technology and applications for these immersive visualization systems.
InterSense works very closely with both the university research community and vendors of these immersive visualization systems to provide the correct tools & techniques required for seamless interaction in these environments.
VENLab (Virtual Environment Navigation Laboratory)
Researchers at Brown University’s Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Department focus on determining how visual cues affect the way we navigate through the world. To initiate this research, Brown's researchers needed a way to control visual stimuli over a large space in order to present subjects with different visual cues as they naturally walk through an open environment.
To conduct this innovative research, Brown designed & built the Virtual Environment Navigation Laboratory (VENLab) with help from InterSense. The VENLab at Brown University utilizes an IS-900 VET system to track a fully immersive head mounted (HMD) display over a 50 x 50 foot room.
Key areas of current research at the VENLab include the integration of long-range navigation with on-line visual control strategies, the geometric structure of spatial knowledge used in navigation, its dependence on learning through interactions with the task environment, the extraction and recognition of landmarks, and the incorporation of new knowledge in an evolving spatial representation. This work also applies how humans learn, represent, and recognize individual objects to landmark detection and recognition.