November 2006
Carleton lab introduces startling innovations to HD visualizations
Governments and industry taking notice
A young architecture professor and his team from Carleton University are taking the advanced computing world by storm with startling innovations in high-definition visualisations that are expected to lead to new applications ranging from gaming to military training.
The research community got a first look at the new technology developed by Prof. Michael Jemtrud and his team at Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) at a demonstration in Montreal on Oct. 20.
Digital architectural reconstruction produced by Carleton University CIMS lab researchers.
Visitors were able to stroll through a life-size 3D digital re-creation of an historic Montreal neighbourhood, projected onto a 30-foot diameter, 360-degree screen inside Society of Arts and Technology facilities, interacting with data being transmitted at very high speed from the CIMS' Carleton lab over the CAnet 4 network.
CIMS and the lab's partner IBM, are now planning to showcase the technology to the international scientific community at SC06, the international conference of high-performance computing, in Florida later this month.
"With this technology, you could digitally recreate Whistler's Olympic Village in Manhattan, Beijing or Toronto, or digitally reconstruct a city devastated by a natural disaster," said Prof. Jemtrud, professor of architecture and Director of CIMS. "This technology will help engineers, architects, designers, security experts and others overcome time delays, barriers, and ultimately enable more informed decision making and understanding of our complex urban environments."
Government and industry are taking notice of the potential use of these new technologies, from the ability to develop full-scale reconstruction of shorelines and cities devastated by catastrophic weather, to real-time collaboration among multiple engineering teams to design the next-generation passenger jet, or satellite, for instance.
Security teams would also be able to rehearse emergency scenarios and security procedures immersed in a life-size recreation of major sporting facilities or nuclear power plants. Military forces could reduce the risk to human life by training in an immersive full-scale digital recreation of the combat theatre - transmitted from a command centre thousands of kilometres away. The technology could also lead to life-size gaming experiences with spectators and players immersed in full-scale gaming arenas.
"We are impressed with the design, visualization and collaboration capabilities at CIMS and their understanding of the business and societal potentials of combining their skills, our world class Deep Computing Visualization technology and the power of high-speed computer networks to address real-world problems," said Earl Dodd, Deep Computing Strategist for DCV with IBM USA.
IBM chose Carleton as one of only five IBM DCV next-generation solutions labs worldwide. The Montreal event was the first public demonstration in Canada of IBM's DCV remote visualization technology.
The recent demonstration is the culmination of two years' work by the CIMS team, at a cost of more than $1 million, funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage to generate the images for the painstakingly realistic digitized 10-block stretch of lower Saint-Laurent Blvd., a designated heritage area.
The work involved architects, engineers, historians, software programmers and network specialists. A large portion of that time involved learning techniques and optimizing the interaction between the different types of technology used for the demonstration. CIMS officials estimate that it can now create the necessary 3D urban visualizations for commercial applications in just a few months.
CIMS was established in 2002 as a research unit within Carleton's School of Architecture and Faculty of Engineering. It become a primary research unit in the new CFI-funded "Centre for Advanced Research in Visualization and Simulation (VSIM)" to open in January 2007.
CIMS and IBM are now planning a demonstration at SC06 and working with CANARIE to provide advanced network connectivity from Ottawa to the SC06 conference facilities in Tampa.
Learn more at www.cims.carleton.ca. Visit an interactive archive of the Montreal demo at www.cims.carleton.ca/pose.
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