For those attending SC14 in New Orleans, Louisiana, we will hold the annual “Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment (SAGE) for Global Collaboration” Birds of a Feather (BOF):

• Tuesday, November 18
• 12:15PM – 01:15PM
• Room: 393-94-95
• sc14.supercomputing.org/schedule/event_detail?evid=bof120

We will introduce SAGE2™, the next-generation SAGE™, in addition to providing SAGE updates. SAGE2 is browser-based and integrates cloud services, a multi-resolution image viewer, a stereoscopic image viewer, mirrored portals, and network streaming of high-resolution imagery. Like SAGE middleware, SAGE2 is a software framework that enables local and remote collaboration on scalable resolution display walls (from single monitors to a wall of tiled displays) by sharing diverse media content, including 2D and 3D visualizations and applications. One major benefit of browser-based software is that there is no installation requirement for users and it is inherently cross-platform. A user simply needs an up-to-date web browser on the device he/she wishes to use as an interaction tool for the wall. SAGE2 services are essentially brought to the user through the Cloud

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This BOF provides a Forum for the SAGE/SAGE2 developers to meet with the the SAGE global user community and potential users; specifically:

• to introduce key SAGE/SAGE2 team members
• to provide an overview of SAGE/SAGE2 roadmaps
• to review SAGE/SAGE2 capabilities and applications
• to highlight SAGE/SAGE2 research and education applications
• to solicit feedback

We are planning SAGE2 demonstrations on the SC14 exhibition floor; more information will be forthcoming.

Together, we can advance scientific research and education by providing production-quality, community-driven open services for visualization and collaboration that utilize shared national and international cyberinfrastructure.

See you at SC14!

Maxine Brown and Luc Renambot
Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL)
University of Illinois at Chicago
maxine@uic.edu

Jason Leigh
Laboratory for Advanced Visualization & Applications (LAVA)
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
leighj@hawaii.edu

SAGE and SAGE2 are trademarks of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.
For more information, see: sage.sagecommons.org

SAGE™ middleware, the Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment, is being used by researchers to better convey related and relevant information to firefighters and disaster response teams, to better assist them in monitoring, forecasting and mitigating wildfires in the future

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A video and print story, titled “WIFIRE helps firefighters get a jump on wildfires,” was produced and released by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Science Nation online publication on July 28, 2014. The video was filmed at UC San Diego’s Calit2-Qualcomm Institute (QI) – and Calit2 director Larry Smarr is one of the people interviewed.

On August 1, 2014, PBS NewsHour released the NSF video along with a print story titled “Firefighters get high tech to douse wildfires”.

Though SAGE™ middleware is not credited, its user interface is clearly recognizable on all the display walls – except for Calit2’s TourCAVE (a large virtual-reality system where the tiled screens are positioned vertically). SAGE™ enables researchers to juxtapose a variety of information on the display walls – observations, such as satellite imagery and real-time data from sensors in the field, with computational techniques like signal processing, visualization, modeling and data assimilation – to enable them to monitor environmental conditions and predict where and how fast a wildfire will spread. WIFIRE is a UC San Diego and University of Maryland project funded by the NSF Hazards SEES program, which enhances sustainability through the use of advanced technologies and new methods. UC San Diego’s Calit2-QI is a major SAGE™ user.

About SAGE™ Middleware

The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) Laboratory for Advanced Visualization & Applications (LAVA) currently receive NSF funding, award #ACI-1441963, to develop the next-generation SAGE™ middleware. While SAGE™ is available as open source, EVL partnered with Vadiza, Inc. to commercialize an enterprise version. SAGE™ is a trademark of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. For more information, see: sage.sagecommons.org

Tuesday, November 19, 2013, 12:15PM – 01:15PM
Colorado Convention Center, Rooms 501/502

SAGE, the Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment, receives major funding from the National Science Foundation to provide the scientific community with persistent visualization and collaboration services for global cyberinfrastructure. SAGE is a widely used open-source platform and the defacto operating system, or framework, for managing “big data” content on scalable-resolution tiled display walls. The SC BOF provides an unparalleled opportunity for the global SAGE user community, and potential users, to meet, review current development efforts, share community-developed use cases and applications, and have dynamic discussions on user requirements and future roadmaps

.

Download Presentation: SC13 SAGE BOF 2013
Download Report: SC13 bof119s1 BOF Presentation Report

AGENDA

• SAGE Update
• SAGE Applications in Research & Education
• SAGE Future Plans
• SAGE Commercialization

PHOTO: SAGE running on EVL’s Cyber-Commons tiled display wall. Courtesy of EVL, UIC. (Photo: Lance Long)

CHICAGO, IL, NOVEMBER 5, 2013 – Vadiza, the leading provider of advanced, integrated appliances for visualization and collaboration, and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) today announced they have signed an agreement licensing SAGE™, UIC’s Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment, for commercial sales, development and use on a global basis

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Concurrent with the announcement, Vadiza announced today that effective immediately it is providing software, services, integrated hardware/software appliances and technical support for SAGE users around the world.

The agreement between Vadiza and the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) confirms that SAGE has moved beyond a university-based project with research labs and academic institutions to the boardrooms, meeting rooms, classrooms and offices of Fortune 500 enterprises. Vadiza will provide enterprise-class technical support, a published product roadmap, and commercial features, such as the integration of SAGE with corporate security architectures, connections to cloud storage, system administration upgrades and more.

As a result of the September 2013 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant renewing EVL’s five-year mandate to focus exclusively on leading-edge innovation, the EVL team is turning over the day-to-day support of the global user base and community to Vadiza beginning today.

“Vadiza and EVL have been working together for the past few months to determine the best way to develop and support SAGE as an open source project with a commercial component,” said Jason Leigh, EVL Director. “The SAGE community has been asking us to create and support an enterprise version of SAGE, but we don’t have the resources to support these projects by ourselves. When Vadiza approached us, we decided they were the right partner to take SAGE to the next level.”

Vadiza appliances are a blend of leading-edge hardware and software. Continuing the trend of providing an exceptional experience to users by combining hardware and software into an integrated offering similar to Apple, Oracle and Netezza/IBM, Vadiza makes it easy for subject matter experts like pathologists, chemists, biologist, ophthalmologists, physicists, editors, journalists, cosmologists, and others to select and use large-scale touch enabled visualization and collaboration systems.

The Vadiza appliance is based on Dell’s Precision R7610 rack mount workstation with standard components and the highest available level of processor speed and graphic cards. Vadiza partners with Dell OEM Solutions for manufacturing, global service and support to bring its product to market, and back it with Dell’s ProSupport service warranty.

“Dell is pleased to partner with Vadiza to provide leading edge, integrated visualization and collaboration appliances. When we were briefed on how Vadiza was looking to deliver seamless and reliable appliances, we immediately put the process into motion to ensure that Dell was the premier hardware provider for Vadiza appliances,” commented Ron Pugh, executive director and general manager, Dell OEM Solutions, Americas.

Using SAGE, subject matter experts can now share the experience of watching a surgery firsthand with groups of local and remote colleagues while listening to an expert explaining the procedure, to all the different locations. Also, they can display, manipulate and compare a variety of two-dimensional and/or three-dimensional data-intensive (i.e., big data) information – whether high-resolution images and movies, high-definition video-teleconferencing, presentation slides, documents, spreadsheets and/or laptop screens – in a variety of resolutions and formats, from multiple sources, on one or more tiled LCD display walls. These large walls, approximating or exceeding print resolution, let users see minute detail of visual data while maintaining context over entire data sets, in order to glean new insights and discoveries.

“Calit2 has used SAGE for the past 8 years for a wide range of visualization and collaboration environments,” said Larry Smarr, Executive Director of Calit2. “The Calit2 team is an enthusiastic supporter of Vadiza creating an enterprise version of SAGE and to provide services and appliances to the commercial market. As one of largest users of SAGE, we are also excited about being able to access technical support on a routine and reliable basis,” he noted.

Vadiza has agreed to continue SAGE as an open-source project and will upgrade the current version of SAGE to an enterprise-grade version. Once the upgrade is completed in July of 2014, Vadiza and EVL will make the open source code freely available.

“When IllinoisVentures was introduced to Vadiza and the Vadiza team outlined their vision of taking SAGE to the commercial market on a global basis, we knew that we wanted to support their effort and invest in their future,” said Rob Schultz, Managing Director, IllinoisVentures. “In the past few months, the Vadiza team has accomplished and surpassed all the objectives we have agreed to. The reception from the existing user base and prospects has been gratifying. We are looking forward to great things from the Vadiza team.”

The Vadiza team is attending SC13. Vadiza welcomes all SAGE users, contributors and interested parties to contact them to discuss improvements to SAGE, address any outstanding user needs/requests, and to grow the global community supporting and strengthening SAGE in government, academic and commercial settings in person at SC13. The SC13 SAGE BOF will be held at the Colorado Convention Center, Tuesday, November 19, 12:15PM – 01:15PM, Rooms 501/502.

For more information, contact Vadiza at (855) 344-8400, e-mail info@vadiza.com, or visit www.vadiza.com to learn more about software, appliances and technical support options.

About Vadiza, Inc.

Vadiza is a leading provider of integrated SAGE (Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment) based appliances for visualization and collaboration. Vadiza collaborates with the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) team at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to create a commercial version of SAGE and to provide support to the global SAGE customer base. Vadiza is committed to the open source heritage of SAGE and to creating a more active community and to connecting all SAGE collaborators. Vadiza is headquartered in Chicago and is funded by IllinoisVentures. Contact Vadiza at (855) 344-8400 or e-mail the Vadiza team at info@vadiza.com or visit www.vadiza.com to learn more.

About the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory

The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is an internationally renowned interdisciplinary research laboratory whose mission is to enable scientific and engineering discoveries by designing and developing high-performance visualization, virtual reality, and collaboration systems using global cyberinfrastructure. Established in 1973 as a joint effort of the UIC College of Engineering and School of Art and Design, EVL is the oldest formal collaboration between engineering and art in the U.S. For more information, see: www.evl.uic.edu.

SAGE is a trademark of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

PDF file: SAGE Documentation

We try to cover:

• SAGE Overview
• SAGE Features and Tiled Display Wall Configurations
• SAGE Systems Guide
• Starting SAGE
• SAGE Users Guide
• SAGE for Developers
• Troubleshooting/Technical Information
• Appendices

On June 25, 2013, in a special demonstration for the first annual US Ignite Application Summit held in Chicago in the U.S., computer scientists from Poland’s Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) streamed ultra-high-resolution 3D movies over high-performance optical networks to the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). These films were “4K” resolution, a digital cinema standard that is slightly more than four times the resolution of high-definition television (HDTV)

. Because EVL does not have a large auditorium with the necessary equipment typically used to display stereo movies at large institutions and movie theaters – a more unconventional “guerrilla tech” approach was needed. Using unique software being developed by the global research community, PSNC and EVL streamed the movies from PSNC servers to a large 3D-capable tiled display wall in EVL’s high-tech classroom. Reliance on software, not expensive hardware, is the way ultra-high-resolution 2D, and eventually 3D, movies will be distributed to research labs, classrooms, offices, and homes in the future.

Specifically, UltraGrid video and audio streaming software, developed by CESNET and the Institute of Computer Science at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, was used to stream uncompressed movie files from Poznan to Chicago. Originally, each 3D movie was actually two movies – a movie for the left eye and a movie for the right eye – which are typically displayed using two projectors with polarizing filters such that the images overlap on the screen, and viewers wear passive stereo glasses to view them. However, to stream to EVL’s 3D tiled display wall (which still requires viewers to wear passive stereo glasses), PSNC had to interleave the rows of each frame of the two movies – such that alternating rows displayed left- and right-eye images – and create one movie file.

At EVL, the UltraGrid receiver sent the interleaved movie frames to EVL’s SAGE (Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment) software, which formatted and pushed the movie frames onto the tiled display wall. SAGE is a high-performance windowing environment, so in addition to displaying the movie, SAGE was used to create additional windows that contained supporting documentation about the films as well as a video-teleconference portal to PSNC, enabling collaborators to interact with the US Ignite audience.

UltraGrid and SAGE, both open source software, were initially developed to harness the power of high-performance networks, so that very-large data files could be stored at the source, enabling the latest information to be downloaded on an as-needed basis and eliminating the need to replicate the data at multiple locations. The development of such tools and techniques is very much a research area, and access to advanced networks for application experiments and tests is made possible by a global consortium of network owners and providers known as the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF). Using the GLIF optical fiber infrastructure, a 10 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps) private network path was created for this event and data was transmitted between Poznań and Chicago at an average rate of 3.4 Gbps. Data went from PSNC, over Poland’s PIONIER network, to NetherLight, a major network exchange in Amsterdam, then over the U.S. NSF-funded transatlantic network ACE (America Connects to Europe) to StarLight, a major network exchange in Chicago, and then to EVL over UIC-owned fiber. The Metropolitan Research and Education Network (MREN), the Midwest regional Research & Education Network, also provided networking. The total length of the fiber link connecting PSNC and EVL was approximately 10,000 km.

The US Ignite organization fosters the development of next-generation internet applications for transformative public benefit, so PSNC selected three beautiful historically and culturally educational films about Poland to share with the audience: a 3D animated “History of Poland” and a 3D computer-graphics recreation of “Jan Matejko’s ‘The Battle of Grunwald’” painting – both created by Platige Image Studio – and a 3D movie of modern-day Poznan created by PSNC. The special demo for US Ignite took place over a three-hour period; 250 attendees were assigned specific 15-minute time slots, as EVL could comfortably handle 25 people in its classroom environment. For all 10 shows, the network streaming worked flawlessly, enabling audiences to enjoy the films’ artistry and stories.

Joe Mambretti of the International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) at Northwestern University and Maxine Brown of EVL, who are part of the consortium that manages the StarLight International/National Communications Exchange Facility, served as hosts, providing the audience with some background about the GLIF infrastructure and the software used. PSNC collaborators Maciej Strozyk and Maciej Glowiak endured the 7-hour time difference to participate via video-teleconference and provide information about the films and answer audience questions. Additional staff in Poland, Amsterdam and Chicago provided networking and technical support.

PSNC has shared this content previously with members of the CineGrid organization, an international, interdisciplinary community focused on the research, development, and demonstration of networked collaborative tools to create, use, preserve and exchange very-high-quality digital media over optical networks. While most CineGrid events are held in auditoriums with adequate equipment – notably projectors, frame buffers and compression boxes – UltraGrid and SAGE software have also been demonstrated and used by CineGrid members. This is the first time, however, that UltraGrid and SAGE were used to stream interleaved 3D movies to a tiled display wall.

The ability to stream any digital media – but more so 4K movies (and now 8K, which is becoming a standard), and 3D movies – over high-performance networks is still a research effort, and special events, such as conferences, serve as a motivating influence to push the envelope. As technologies such as UltraGrid, SAGE and tiled display walls mature and become more ubiquitous, they will enable broader dissemination of ultra-resolution information, for teaching, remote collaboration, telemedicine, museums, and the arts and entertainment.

Contact:
Maxine D. Brown
Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago
maxine@uic.edu

For more information:

• US Ignite: us-ignite.org
• US Ignite Application Summit: us-ignite.org/applicationsummit/
• Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center: www.man.poznan.pl/online/en/
• Electronic Visualization Laboratory: www.evl.uic.edu
• UltraGrid: www.ultragrid.cz/
• SAGE: sage.sagecommons.org
• 3D animated History of Poland: www.platige.com/en/page/75-Animated_History_Of_Poland
• 3D recreation of Jan Matejko’s “The Battle of Grunwald”: www.platige.com/en/page/79-Jan_Matejko_Battle_Of_Grunwald_3
• 3D modern-day Poznan: youtube/uZSkbGEgQ5I
• GLIF: www.glif.is
• PIONIER network: www.pionier.net.pl/online/pl/
• NetherLight: www.netherlight.net
• ACE: internationalnetworking.iu.edu/ACE
• StarLight: www.startap.net/starlight
• iCAIR: www.icair.org
• CineGrid: www.cinegrid.org
• MREN: www.mren.org

SAGE BIRDS OF A FEATHER (BOF): Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment (SAGE) for Global Collaboration

SAGE, the Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment, receives funding from the National Science Foundation to provide persistent visualization and collaboration services for global cyberinfrastructure. It is a widely used open-source platform and the scientific community’s defacto software operating environment, or framework, for managing content on scalable-resolution tiled display walls

. The SC12 SAGE BOF, the fourth annual meeting of the worldwide SAGE user community, provides an unparalleled opportunity for the SAGE global user community, and potential users, to meet and discuss current and future development efforts, and to share examples of community-developed use cases and applications.

Download Presentation: SC12 SAGE BOF 2012

Powerpoint Contents

• I. Introductions – Maxine Brown, UIC/EVL
• II. SAGE Community – Maxine Brown, UIC/EVL
  • What is SAGE?
  • SAGE User Community
  • SAGE New Users 2011-2012
  • SAGE Survey Summary (May 2012)
  • SAGE Demo Highlights 2011-2012
  • SAGE and the CAVE2™ System
• III. SAGE Development Update – Luc Renambot, UIC/EVL
  • Updates
  • New Features
  • SAGE Next
• IV. SAGE Future – Luc Renambot, UIC/EVL
  • Pursuing New Funding
  • Hybrid 2D/3D Environments
• V. Discussion – Luc Renambot, UIC/EVL

OCTOBER 16, 2012

On October 11th, 2012, at the 12th Annual Global LambdaGrid Workshop in Chicago, sponsored by the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF), an international ultra-high-definition, high-performance, digital streaming application was showcased by researchers at the SITOLA laboratory at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. To elevate digital media resolution to match the capabilities of human vision, which traditional media does not, 8K digital media (ultra-high-definition video with 16 times the resolution of common Full-HD video) was demonstrated. The size of these data streams is much higher than those that can be supported by today’s networks

. To address this challenge, SITOLA researchers are developing new capabilities for video compression and processing using graphical processors and advanced protocols for video distribution in the computer networks. An implementation of this research, shown at GLIF, is the open-source UltraGrid framework.

More specifically, at the GLIF workshop, SITOLA streamed an 8K movie from the International Center for Advanced Internet Research at Northwestern University in Chicago to the SITOLA laboratory in Brno, Czech Republic, and to the site of the demonstration – the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Participants on both receiving locations could control the streaming interactively. UltraGrid used JPEG compression at 2Gb/s, on-the-fly recompressed to DXT5-YCoCg compression at 6.5Gb/s and displayed the images on a high-resolution tiled-display walls using EVL’s SAGE middleware, which is interoperable with UltraGrid.

Currently, such capabilities can be used for specialty venues, such as conferences, and for advanced research applications, such as medical training, but in the future services such as this will be available to consumers. Because of the resolution limitation of human vision, 8K or ultra-high-definition video is perceived as the ultimate technology for broadcasting and cinematography applications. It is 16 times the resolution of standard Full-high-definition, and enables the viewer to be better immersed in the scene. This standard was demonstrated during the Summer Olympic Games 2012 in London by NHK and BBC, where custom hardware and networks were used to transmit the content from the stadiums. The format has been standardized and is expected to be deployed in production around the year 2020.

This demonstration was supported by CESNET, the Czech national research and education network, the International Center for Advanced Internet Research at Northwestern University, the Electronic Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the StarLight International/National Communications Exchange Facility. The 8K movie was originally uses images from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Adler Planetarium for its domed ceiling.

About CESNET
The CESNET Association was founded by Czech universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The association is engaged in research and development in information and communication technologies and builds and develops the CESNET Large Infrastructure for research and education. With its research activities and accomplishments, CESNET represents the Czech Republic in international projects, focusing primarily on building the pan-European GÉANT network and the grid infrastructure EGI.eu, and participates actively in their implementation. As an NGI (National Grid Initiative), CESNET is also one of the founding members of the EGI initiative. www.cesnet.cz

About SITOLA and UltraGrid
Laboratory of Advanced Network Technologies (SITOLA) was founded in 2002 by the Masaryk University and CESNET Association as a joint workplace for research and development of advanced network technologies and applications. UltraGrid is an open-source framework for low-latency network transmissions of HD and post-HD video. Originating from ISI EAST, the UltraGrid is now developed at SITOLA and the development is mainly funded by CESNET. Focus of UltraGrid is on maximum image quality and minimum latency available on commodity hardware. Depending on available network capacity, the video can be transmitted as uncompressed or compressed. Research focuses on acceleration of video processing and compressions using graphics processors (GPUs) and user-empowered multipoint data distribution. UltraGrid is available for Linux and MacOS X from ultragrid.sitola.cz.

About EVL and SAGE
The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois at Chicago is an internationally renowned interdisciplinary research laboratory specializing in the design and development of high-performance visualization, virtual-reality and collaboration display systems utilizing advanced networking. SAGE, the Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment, is cross-platform, open-source middleware that enables users worldwide to have a common operating environment, or framework, to access, display and share a variety of data-intensive information on one or more tiled display walls, with the same ease that the Web affords for accessing lower-resolution objects today. sage.sagecommons.org.

About iCAIR
The International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) at Northwestern University accelerates leading-edge innovation and enhanced global communications through advanced technologies, in partnership with numerous international communities and national partners. iCAIR partners with EVL at University of Illinois at Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory and Calit2/UCSD, in collaboration with Canada’s CANARIE and the Netherlands’ SURFnet, to manage and grow the StarLight International/National Communications Exchange Facility. www.icair.org

Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Washington State Convention and Trade Center (WSCC), Seattle, WA

The SC11 SAGE BOF was the third annual meeting of the worldwide SAGE user community. It provided an opportunity for both current users as well as potential users to meet, discuss current and future development efforts, and share examples of

community-developed use cases and applications. SAGE is a three-year project funded by the National Science Foundation to create persistent visualization and collaboration services for global cyberinfrastructure, and is currently deployed at 78 major centers and institutions worldwide.

Powerpoint Presentations
Download Presentations: SAGE BOF 2011

Powerpoint Contents

• I. Introductions
• II. SAGE Overview
  • What is SAGE?
  • SAGE User Community
  • SAGE New Users 2010-2011
• III. SAGE User Community Updates
  • Thomas A. DeFanti, Calit2, University of California San Diego, U.S.
  • Bernard Pailthorpe, University of Queensland, Australia
  • Petr Holub, Masaryk University Czech Republic (MUSE: Multi-Sensor Framework)
  • Petr Holub, Masaryk University Czech Republic (UltraGrid Streaming to SAGE)
  • Shinji Shimojo, NICT and Osaka University, Japan
  • Paul Melis, SARA Computing and Networking Services, The Netherlands
  • Estelle Dodson, Collaborative Technologies Specialist, NASA Lunar Science Institute, U.S.
• IV. SAGE Development Update – Luc Renambot, UIC/EVL
• V. SAGE Next – Sungwon Nam, UIC/EVL
• VI. Wrap-Up – Jason Leigh, UIC/EVL (5 minutes)

November 9, 2011

Seamlessly-tiled LCD flat-screen displays stretching floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Electronic Visualization Laboratory “Cyber-Commons” has served as a digitally-enhanced way to display, manipulate and exchange information and images since its opening in 2009. On November 11, EVL demonstrates Cyber-Commons’ latest enhancement – three-dimensional imagery, displayed along with traditional 2-D images.

“It’s a very powerful way to communicate ideas,” said Jason Leigh, UIC-EVL director and professor of computer science. “It lets people work together, make sense of lots of information and hopefully derive insights quicker. We’ve found it changes the way students work together.”

The Cyber-Commons flat-screen displays are tiled on the wall to form a nearly cinematic classroom blackboard that Leigh describes as “democratic” in its use. Anyone in the room with a laptop or tablet device such as an iPad can wirelessly grab space on the Cyber-Commons wall and simultaneously display multiple images from documents to videos. Users can also call up stored images, positioning and sizing them with their fingers on a touch-sensitive display surface. That’s made possible by EVL-developed software called SAGE – Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment – which also enables Cyber-Commons 3-D, or CC3D, to link via high-performance networks for real-time collaboration with facilities around the world.

“CC3D puts 2-D and 3-D on the same screen at the same time,” said Maxine Brown, EVL’s associate director. CC3D will initially use passive stereo technology to view 3-D. While passive stereo requires special glasses, they’re not expensive like active stereo glasses that cost around $100, now used with consumer 3-D TV sets. “Our glasses cost less than $1,” said Brown, who thinks it’ll be a few years before “auto-stereo” technology – which doesn’t need special glasses – becomes both widespread and cheap. In the meantime, Brown thinks $1 glasses will be widely affordable to schools, museums, medical centers and businesses that are likely to use 3-D Cyber-Commons facilities.

Using 2009 federal economic stimulus grants, EVL worked with Oregon-based Planar Systems to create a 3-D LCD, ultra-thin border flat-panel display wall that gives Cyber-Commons its new, added dimension. After working together on a display prototype, Planar provided EVL with customized technology which they call the “Clarity Matrix LCD Video Wall”. Planar – a company specializing in high quality visualization and digital signage displays – gets a new product to market.

Leigh will test UIC’s CC3D facility next spring when he collaboratively teaches a video game development course with a professor at Louisiana State University. He said UIC-EVL’s focus is on scientific research and educational use, such as medicine, engineering and chemistry, where adding 3-D images which researchers, students and instructors can jointly manipulate and study offers real insight and understanding.

“3-D is more than Hollywood gimmickry,” said Leigh. “Humans understand information much more effectively in 3-D.” Visualizing a molecule, for example, in only two-dimensions can be too abstract or lack the depth cues to be adequately comprehended. Geoscience is another field where 3-D adds substantial advantages. Leigh cited a study of male and female students that found females had typically performed poorer in geospatial tests. But when stereoscopic – 3-D – capability was added to the visualization, both males and females improved and the gender differences disappeared. “It eliminates that barrier,” Leigh said.

CC3D will also serve as a technology test bed for UIC-EVL’s “Next-Generation CAVE” Automatic Virtual Environment facility, debuting a year from now. CAVE, developed 20 years ago at EVL and now commercialized by companies around the world, originally used projectors and very expensive 3-D glasses to work. Leigh calls the new display technology for CC3D bright and “gloriously beautiful.” “We’ll be the first to build an LCD, non-projector-based CAVE,” said Leigh. “We calculate that the display resolution will be on the order of what matches human vision.”

UIC-EVL doctoral graduate Tom Peterka, now a scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, is helping in both NG-CAVE and CC3D development with an eye on possible use of such 3-D technology at America’s national laboratories.