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Illinois IGB

Core Facilities

Cube

The IGB Cube is an immersive, stereo-capable (true 3-D) visualization chamber manufactured by TAN Projektionstechnologie of Dusseldorf, Germany. It is located in a specially-constructed wing of the ISL building. The six surfaces of the Cube are 3-meter-square acrylic panels coated with a dark rear-projection screen material. The walls are 10mm thick and the floor and ceiling are 35mm thick. The front wall slides open to permit access and closes completely to ensure immersion of the user in the space.

The Cube is driven by a cluster of Windows PCs with genlocked nVidia Quadro FX 5800G graphics cards. Applications for the Cube can be developed in either C++ or Python using ISL-developed Syzygy software or in Python using Vizard™.

Cube
Cube

A Cube user enjoys a completely untethered visualization experience. An Intersense IS-900 ultrasonic/accelerometer-based tracking system supplies information over a wireless link about the position and orientation of the user's head and of a wand. Active stereo is viewed through a Stereographics LCD shutter-glasses system. Spatialized sound is computed using head-related transfer functions based on head position and orientation information from the tracking system. Additional devices for presenting and gathering data, such as hand-held wireless computers, wireless microphones, and wireless cameras, can be incorporated as needed.