[From The Globe and Mail, where the story includes additional related information]

[Image: Waterloo’s Reality Cave – an immersive 3-D visualization centre gives one the opportunity to experience a design before it is built. (Scott McQuarrie, re:actionphotography)]

Planning

A 3-D device changes the conversation about space

Jennifer Lewington Kitchener — Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Sep. 04 2012

Months before construction this fall of Woodlands library in central Mississauga, Ont., branch librarians walked around the 7,000-square-foot space with all the bookshelves and furniture in place, as if it existed.

Was it science fiction? No.

The Woodlands librarians had a virtual experience, made possible by interactive three-dimensional technology that creates the illusion of depth and perspective using stereoscopic (3-D) projectors illuminating images on four sides of a booth-like space. Stepping into the booth, they responded to the design as if it were real, peering around bookshelves, passing through doorways and standing in the parking lot to get a feel for the space and identify potential trouble spots.… read more. “Reality Cave: A 3-D device changes the conversation about space”

[From The PBS NewsHour]

[Image: PBS NewsHour uses a helmet camera during the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum. (Brian Cassella, Chicago Tribune / August 29, 2012)]

Hatcam Goes to the Conventions

By: Katelyn Polantz
September 4, 2012

What’s that curious helmet covered in stickers and wires?

Why, it’s the PBS NewsHour hatcam, an emerging sensation at the national political conventions.

Our documentary tool is a red plastic hard hat outfitted with a Go Pro HD camera, shotgun microphone and LiveShell broadcast transmitter that beams out onto our UStream channel live. And it has allowed us to capture the convention from one more perspective: at eye level with delegates, media members and politicians, allowing us to be unencumbered by bulky photography gear.

We’ve had real conversations with real people at the Republican National Convention who are drawn to the hat, and just as quickly forget about it.… read more. “PBS hatcam brings new viewing perspective to political conventions”

[From KurzweilAI via Telepresence Options]

[Image: Atomic clusters of metals are an emerging class of extremely interesting materials occupying the intermediate size regime between atoms and nanoparticles. (credit: Reji Philip et al./Nano Letters)]

Nanoclusters that diffuse laser beams or create 3D telepresence

August 31, 2012 by Amara D. Angelica

Think of the possibilities.

University of Central Florida assistant professor Jayan Thomas, in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University Associate Professor Rongchao Jin, has developed a new material based on gold nanoparticles smaller than 2 nanometers, in a regime between atoms and nanoparticles called nanoclusters.

Thomas and his team found that nanoclusters developed by adding atoms in a sequential manner could provide interesting new optical properties that make them suitable for creating surfaces that would diffuse laser beams of high energy.

Protecting pilots and instruments from laser beams

Think of commercial pilots or fighter pilots’ glasses or helmet shield could be coated with nanoclusters that potentially diffuse high-energy beams of light, such as laser beams.… read more. “Nanoclusters that diffuse laser beams or create 3D telepresence”

[From IT Wire]

Ford Australia creates the Holodeck

Ford Australia engineers and designers are living in a virtual world, and loving it.  The company has unveiled its new Virtual Reality Centre, a high tech digital evaluation and design environment

31 August 2012
By Mike Bantick

Years before a Ford vehicle shines on stage at a car show or arrives in dealer showrooms, Ford researchers are hard at work behind the scenes, building virtual vehicles that allow the company to design, analyse and enhance the driver experience before a physical vehicle ever exists.

Known as the Powerwall (Trekers would have preferred the term Holodeck, maybe next time) the new Virtual Reality Centre houses a 6m x 3m screen used to evaluated 3D models of proposed cars.

According to Ford the result is a superior mark of craftsmanship and refined finish that characterises Ford vehicles.… read more. “Ford expands uses of virtual reality”