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Charles Rex Arbogast / AP
University of Illinois-Chicago computer scientist Jason Leigh stands in the CAVE2 virtual-reality system, where 72 stereoscopic liquid crystal display panels encircle the viewer.
CHICAGO — Take a walk through a human brain? Fly over the surface of Mars? Computer scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago are pushing science fiction closer to reality with a wraparound virtual world where a researcher wearing 3-D glasses can do all that and more.
In the system, known as CAVE2, an 8-foot-high (2.4-meter-high) screen encircles the viewer 320 degrees. A panorama of images springs from 72 stereoscopic liquid crystal display panels, conveying a dizzying sense of being able to touch what's not really there.
As far back as 1950, sci-fi author Ray Bradbury imagined a children's nursery that could make bedtime stories disturbingly real. "Star Trek" fans might remember the holodeck as the virtual playground where the fictional Enterprise crew relaxed in fantasy worlds.
The Illinois computer scientists have more serious matters in mind when they hand visitors 3-D glasses and a controller called a "wand." Scientists in many fields today share a common challenge: How to truly understand overwhelming amounts of data. Jason Leigh, co-inventor of the CAVE2 virtual reality system, believes this technology answers that challenge.
"In the next five years, we anticipate using the CAVE to look at really large-scale data to help scientists make sense of that information. CAVEs are essentially fantastic lenses for bringing data into focus," Leigh said.
The CAVE2 virtual world could change the way doctors are trained and improve patient care, Leigh said. Pharmaceutical researchers could use it to model the way new drugs bind to proteins in the human body. Car designers could virtually "drive" their vehicle designs.
Imagine turning massive amounts of data — the forces behind a hurricane, for example — into a simulation that a weather researcher could enlarge and explore from the inside. Architects could walk through their skyscrapers before they are built. Surgeons could rehearse a procedure using data from an individual patient.
Charles Rex Arbogast / AP
Brain surgeon Ali Alaraj talks about the first time he viewed the brain using the CAVE2. "You can walk between the blood vessels," said the University of Illinois College of Medicine neurosurgeon. "You can look at the arteries from below. You can look at the arteries from the side."
CAVEs aren't cheap
But the size and expense of room-based virtual reality systems may prove insurmountable barriers to widespread use, said Henry Fuchs, a computer science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who is familiar with the CAVE technology but wasn't involved in its development.
While he calls the CAVE2 "a national treasure," Fuchs predicts a smaller technology such as Google's Internet-connected eyeglasses will do more to revolutionize medicine than the CAVE. Still, he says large displays are the best way today for people to interact and collaborate.
Believers include the people at Marshalltown, Iowa-based Mechdyne Corp., which has licensed the CAVE2 technology for three years and plans to market it to hospitals, the military and in the oil and gas industry, said Kurt Hoffmeister of Mechdyne.
In Chicago, researchers and graduate students are creating virtual scenarios for testing in the CAVE2. The Mars flyover is created from real NASA data. The brain tour is based on the layout of blood vessels in a real patient.
Brain surgeon Ali Alaraj remembered the first time he viewed the brain using the CAVE2.
"You can walk between the blood vessels," said the University of Illinois College of Medicine neurosurgeon. "You can look at the arteries from below. You can look at the arteries from the side.... That was science fiction for me."
How CAVEs compare
Would doctors process information faster with fewer errors using CAVE2? That's the question behind a proposed study that would compare CAVE2 to conventional methods of detecting brain aneurysms and determining proper treatment, said Andreas Linninger, UIC professor of bioengineering, chemical engineering and computer science.
But it's not all serious business at the lab.
In his spare time during the past two years, research assistant Arthur Nishimoto has been programming the CAVE2 computer with the specifications for the fictional Starship Enterprise. He now can walk around his life-size re-creation of the TV spacecraft.
The original technology, introduced in the early 1990s, was called CAVE, which stood for Cave Automatic Virtual Environment and also cleverly referred to Plato's cave, the philosopher's analogy about shadows and reality. It was named by former lab co-directors Tom DeFanti and Dan Sandin.
The second generation of the CAVE, invented by Leigh and his collaborator Andy Johnson, has higher resolution. The project was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.
"It's fantastic to come to work. Every day is like getting to live a science fiction dream," Leigh said. "To do science in this kind of environment is absolutely amazing."
More about virtual environments:
- 3-D virtual reality comes to home computers
- Is there a virtual Mars in our future?
- Gallery: Reality check for Star Trek tech
- Project Holodeck beams up virtual-reality gaming
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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This is pretty incredible stuff and I can see how important it is already. My best friend has a son who works on a military base, in computer programing. He has created a 360 surround image for a fighter cockpit, in which pilots sit.The glasses they wear respond to their eyes movements. So where they look, the whole image changes, up, down, where ever. As if one were really inside a fighter plane. Giving them the ability to develop their skills as if they really were flying. The scenes can be changed to any place in the world or into any kind of environment. The technology is pretty close to the same. Except for the glasses.But the military doesn't share its secrets!
If nothing else, virtual vacations anywhere in the world, especially simultaneously shared as a fully interactive group (and even by virtual extension, multiple groups), will make this technology indispensable. I remember the Eastern Airlines "Wings of Man" ride many years ago when Disney World in Florida had just opened up. In my opinion, nothing at Disney World compared with that, and I have been waiting many years (indeed, much of my life) to see that ability finally become virtual reality for everyone to experience. Just watch our 'ever shrinking' world shrink then!- RC
"Just watch our 'ever shrinking' world shrink then", even as our global consciousnesses correspondingly expand at the same time! - RC
(Ever want to fly a Bell jet backpack indefinitely? Just wait, it's coming, and you can virtually go anywhere (that Google can?)) - RC
For now, maybe. But technology never sits still. As the tech improves, the costs come down, and usually quite dramatically. I remember a time when it was thought that only large companies or very rich people could afford computers. Now a simple laptop, tablet, or even a smart phone has more computing power than people ever dreamed possible back then.