Howe Hall future virtual reality lab will be the first of its kind.

The C6 Virtual Reality System, which is being constructed in the atrium of Howe Hall, will be the first six-sided lab in the United States, only the fourth in the world.

It will be the first originally designed to have six walls, said James Bernard, director of the Virtual Reality Applications Center. It also will be the first VR lab to feature wireless controls.

“When you are in this business, you can’t stand still,” said Bernard, professor of mechanical engineering.

Carolina Cruz-Neira, creator of the first virtual reality cave at ISU in 1992, chose to come to ISU to continue her research because of the technological resources and the interest in moving ahead in the field of virtual reality.

One of the areas researchers are most interested in right now is the collaboration of two physically separate systems to make one virtual world, Cruz-Neira said.

“We will have a virtual world where two people, no matter where they are physically, will be able to meet in a virtual world,” said Cruz-Neira, associate director of the center and associate professor of computer and electrical engineering.

Cruz-Neira and Bernard both said the combination of the C6 and the C2, the four-walled virtual reality lab in Black Engineering, will help with collaboration research.

Cruz-Neira said it will be much easier to do this type of research because of the ability to run from one lab to the other to see what is happening and solve problems instead of having to go half-way around the world.

She said the outcome of advancement in collaboration will be one of the most useful elements of ISU’s VR labs.

“People in different places could have a virtual meeting,” she said.

Their meeting would be complete with virtual representations of each person, graphics of a room, voice connections and virtual presentations.

The people would even be able to “see” each other talking and moving and could point to what they would be discussing, Cruz-Neira said.

One of the advantages of the C6 on its own will be the total immersion in the virtual world caused by having six walls instead of four, she said.

“In the real world, you don’t spin the world around to turn around,” Cruz-Neira said.

But with the C6, the virtual world will be stable and the person will turn, she said.

Bernard said uses for the C6 will only be limited by the imaginations of the engineers, scientists and artists who use it.

He said some applications like flying a plane or exploring a molecule will be more realistic with images from all sides, but not every problem needs that much detail, mobility or even a 3-D environment.

The fact that a person will be completely surrounded by something computer generated is a great improvement in the technology, he said.

“No matter where you look you see images,” Bernard said. “It’s going to be awesome.”

Although construction of the new lab only began a few weeks ago after the dedication of Howe Hall, the opening already is being planned, Bernard said.

The public opening of the C6 is planned for mid-June of 2000 during the Immersive Projection Technology Workshop to be held at ISU.

This event will be attended by leading virtual reality researchers from around the world, he said.

This conference will help raise awareness of the technology at ISU, he said.

Bernard said the new technology already has been noticed by corporations such as the National Science Foundation, Procter and Gamble, John Deere, and Boeing.