[From Kotaku Australia, where the post includes a 1:11 minute video; more information is available from The University of Illinois at Chicago]
[Image: Individuals in the circular CAVE2 navigate 3D Mars. Image provided by Luc Renambot, UIC/EVL (data NASA & European Space Agency)]
I’d Kill To Play Games On This 72-Screen, 36-Computer Virtual Reality System
Luke Plunkett
August 6, 2012
Later this year, the University of Illinois at Chicago will take the wraps off something it’s calling CAVE2. You, however, will most probably call it “that badass virtual reality system”.
CAVE2 is big. It’s 24-feet in diameter and 8 feet tall. But then, it needs to be. It consists of 72 screens and 20 speakers, and takes 36 computers to run. That gets you a 320-degree view with visuals that can be displayed in 74 megapixels (or 37 if you’re using its 3D capabilities). The system has been designed to allow people to become truly immersed in “worlds too large, too small, too dangerous, too remote, or too complex to be viewed otherwise”.
It’s main goal is of course in the fields of science and education, which its creators repeatedly emphasise. As they would, since that’s why they’ve got funding for it. So why post about it here? These are the same guys who made that enormous, touch-screen Star Wars game we showed you a year ago.
If that was what they could whip up in their spare time for a flat screen, imagine what they could do with this.
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