CAVERN
The CAVE Research Network
Maxine D. Brown
Electronic Visualization Laboratory
University of Illinois at Chicago
CAVE Research and Development
1992—Prototype CAVE
1993—10’x10’x10’ CAVE
1994—SIGGRAPH VROOM
1995—I-WAY at SC’95
1997—100 CAVES and
derivatives worldwide
1997-8—NSF funding for
CAVERN and new desktop
VR devices for the Grid,
STAR TAP and NCSA
University of Illinois at Chicago
Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL)
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25 years at UIC
Joint program: EECS and Art & Design
2 directors and 12 associated faculty
10 staff
50 graduate students (27 EVL supported)
Long-time application collaborations
– National Center for Supercomputing
Applications (NCSA)
– Argonne National Laboratory
– Building the Grid together
University of Illinois at Chicago
EVL Computing and Networking Facilities
• 4 CAVE-sized Onyx rack computers
• 2 CAVEs, 8 ImmersaDesks, many
workstations, at EVL and allied UI labs
• OC-3 networking to MREN, vBNS, and
STAR TAP
• Access to the Grid: Very large SP2s, SGI’s
at Argonne and NCSA and >100 CAVEs
and ImmersaDesks worldwide
University of Illinois at Chicago
The Grid:
Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure
I. Foster, C. Kesselman (Eds), Morgan Kaufmann, 1999
• ISBN 1-55860-475-8
• 22 chapters by expert
authors including
Andrew Chien, Jack
Dongarra, Tom DeFanti,
Andrew Grimshaw, Roch
Guerin, Ken Kennedy,
Paul Messina, Cliff
Neuman, Jon Postel,
Larry Smarr, Rick
Stevens, and many
others
“A source book for the history
of the future” -- Vint Cerf
http://www.mkp.com/grids
University of Illinois at Chicago
Midwest Networked CAVE and
ImmersaDesk Sites
UIC-Chicago
UIUC-Urbana
Argonne NL
U Wisconsin
U Michigan
Indiana U
U Iowa
Iowa State
U Minnesota
U of Chicago
University of Illinois at Chicago
NCSA Partners Connected by the vBNS
University of Illinois at Chicago
STAR TAP:
Science Technology And Research Transit Access Point
The Persistent Interconnect for NGI, Internet2, International High-Performance Networks
Canada
Iceland
Norway
Japan
Korea
Sweden
Finland
Denmark
Taiwan
Russia
France
Singapore
Australia
Netherlands
CERN
Israel
University of Illinois at Chicago
Source: http://www.startap.net/topology.html
CAVERN
Networks not only facilitate but seem to
mandate partnerships
• CAVE Research Network (CAVERN)
• CAVE Research Network User’s Society
(CAVERNUS)
University of Illinois at Chicago
Tele-Immersion
•Tele-Immersion is the merger of VR worlds
and people--3D phone calls!
•For each user, Tele-Immersion needs to
support:
– Viewer-centered perspective
– Large angle of view
– Stereo
– Seeing and talking to distant collaborators
University of Illinois at Chicago
Why Represent People ?
• Need to know relationship of people to
synthetic world
• To signal exchange and shared control
• To communicate states of collaborators
• To recognize people and tell who is
talking
• And, people want to be “in the picture”
University of Illinois at Chicago
Two Representations of People
• Video images
• Synthetic models (avatars)
University of Illinois at Chicago
Tele-Immersion
and CAVERNsoft
• Tele-Immersion requires
expertise in graphics, VR,
audio/video compression,
networking, databases
• Rapidly build new teleimmersive applications
• Retro-fit old applications
• CAVERNsoft enables
applications!
University of Illinois at Chicago
CAVERNsoft: Car Interiors
VisualEyes
worldwide
General Motors
Research and
Hughes Research
Labs
University of Illinois at Chicago
Caterpillar’s Distributed Virtual Reality
Data courtesy of Valerie Lehner, NCSA, 1996
University of Illinois at Chicago
CAVERNsoft: Virtual Director
University of Illinois at Chicago
Requirements for Tele-Immersion
• Collaborative interaction and
manipulation
• Communication: audio, video & avatars
(virtual participants)
• Synchronous and asynchronous work
• Network and database quality of service
• Multiple heterogeneous data streams
University of Illinois at Chicago
More Requirements for Tele-Immersion
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Flexible connectivity
High level modules for developers
Performance monitoring
Recordability
Trans-oceanic capability
Cultural sensitivity (e.g., avatar gesture
translators)
University of Illinois at Chicago
CAVERNsoft Case Studies
NICE—an educational environment
University of Illinois at Chicago
CAVERNsoft Case Studies
Virtual
Temporal
Bone
UIC Virtual Reality
Medicine Lab
University of Illinois at Chicago
CAVERNsoft Case Studies
V-Mail
Virtual Trainer
A tool for asynchronous collaboration
University of Illinois at Chicago
iGrid: The International Grid
Research Demonstrations, SC’98
• 22 demonstrations that featured technical
innovations and application advancements
requiring high-speed networks, with emphasis on
distributed computing, tele-immersion, large
datasets, remote instrumentation, and
collaboration
• 10 countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan,
Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland,
Taiwan, USA
University of Illinois at Chicago
International Applications-Level
Networking Issues
• Building relationships
• Time zones
– Asynchronous collaboration
– Annotations and recording
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Network speeds / QoS needs
Speed of light
Audio
Culture
University of Illinois at Chicago
SC’98 iGrid
Industrial Mold Filling
Indiana University (USA), Argonne National Laboratory (USA), Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA),
Industrial Materials Institute, NRC (Canada), Centre de Recherche en Calcul Appliqué (Canada)
University of Illinois at Chicago
SC’98 iGrid
3D Magneto Hydrodynamic Equations
Sandia National Laboratories (USA), Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (USA), High Performance
Computing Center, a division of the Computing Center of Stuttgart University (Germany)
University of Illinois at Chicago
SC’98 iGrid
Telebot and Einstein Spacetime
University of Illinois at Chicago (USA)
Max Planck Institut fuer Gravitationphysik, Albert Einstein
Institut (Germany), NCSA (USA), Argonne National Laboratory
(USA), Washington University (USA)
University of Illinois at Chicago
SC’98 iGrid
Taiwan Numerical Wind Tunnel
National Center for High Performance Computing (Taiwan), National Cheng Kung University (Taiwan),
National Chioa-Tung University (Taiwan)
University of Illinois at Chicago
SC’98 iGrid—The Netherlands
Parallel Lighting Simulation
SARA: Academic Computing Services Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
University of Illinois at Chicago
Impact: Five Years From Now
• Tele-immersion and data mining over high
speed networks will be routine; audio,
video, gesture and haptics will be integrated
with latency tolerant techniques
• Methods for recording, editing, annotating,
replaying, and broadcasting tele-immersive
sessions will be perfected; avatars will help
convey a true sense of tele-presence
University of Illinois at Chicago
International Impact
• Tele-immersion is particularly critical for
trans-oceanic science and engineering
users
• Implementation is particularly difficult and
challenging as distance increases
• Significant participation expected by
international researchers via STAR TAP,
given support for applications development
University of Illinois at Chicago
For More Information
Websites
• www.evl.uic.edu
• www.evl.uic.edu/cavern
• www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/VR/cavernus
• www.startap.net
University of Illinois at Chicago