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UA researchers, faculty and students have a new place on campus to interact with 3-D worlds they create.

The Arizona Laboratory for Immersive Visualization Environments (AZ-LIVE) is located in the Computer Center, Room 307, and coordinated by Marvin Landis of CCIT's Research Computing Support group. Landis is available to give demonstrations in AZ-LIVE as well as help prepare visualizations generated from 3-D objects and data supplied by the researcher, faculty member or student in disciplines ranging from the hard sciences to the arts.

Some simplified descriptions of a few of the demonstrations that can be experienced in AZ-LIVE, by subject area:

Molecular dynamics
Walk around, peer under and over, analyze and interact with molecular systems. Materials can be applied to molecular geometry, allowing sub-structures to be distinguished by different representations, color and transparency. Chemists, biologists and others can use computer simulations or manual manipulations to interact with such structures to see what changes result. It's scientific speculation made up-close-and-personal, virtually tangible.

Atmospheric sciences
Fly over, around and through a dust cloud, storm cloud or a hurricane. Wind patterns and velocities are symbolized by flocks of arrows and particle or moisture densities represented by surfaces of varied color and intensity.

Medical reconstructions
Images collected from a variety of medical equipment such as MRI scans, CT scans or confocal microscopes are used as input for creating 3-D representations of structures present in the image slices. Explore the eggs in an ovary, fly through the midsection of the visible man, discover the major regions of a human brain, or even immerse yourself in the neurons of an insect's brain.

Digital arts
Walk through a Sonoran Desert landscape littered with graves and memorials to those who've died from heat and dehydration crossing the Mexican-U.S. border. Become a participant in virtual worlds created by art students studying virtual reality programming techniques.

Hear the sounds of the desert, the ticking of a clock, music being sung to an unborn child, or noises triggered in various areas of these artistic environments.

AZ-LIVE combines 3-D computer graphics, stereoscopic projection technology, acoustical tracking devices and four-channel audio to create the illusion of being present in a virtual world.

There are three 10-foot-wide x 8-foot-high walls and a floor that have high-resolution stereo images projected on them. The walls are reconfigurable into three basic arrangements, from the more intimate cave-like arrangement for 1 to 5 people to a 30-foot wide flat vertical display that can accommodate larger groups of 20 to 25 people.

Right- and left-eye images of the world are sequentially displayed by the graphics computer. LCD shutter glasses, synchronized with the projectors by use of infrared emitters, block the right eye when the left image is shown and vice versa.

Every person in the environment wears a pair of the stereographic glasses, while one main viewer wears a special pair of tracking glasses. An acoustical tracking device mounted on the ceiling detects the position and orientation of the main viewer's head and a handheld input device called a wand.

The values generated by the tracking device for the viewer's head are sent to the computer and used to show the correct viewing perspective. A four-channel audio system can be used to trigger sounds or music when the viewer navigates into a particular area of a virtual world.

Since 1990, CCIT Research Computing Support group has been helping UA researchers create graphical representations from the results of computer computations, simulations and measurements. The goal of scientific visualization is to assist in developing a deeper understanding of data and provide new insights that rely on the human visual system.