Soon anyone will be able to step into the cave of virtual reality at Iowa State.

Starting in January the C2 virtual reality program will be opened to visitors every third Friday of the month, James Bernard, interim director, said.

Bernard, ISU President Martin Jischke and Carolina Cruz-Neira, associate scientist in the computer science department, spoke about virtual and synthetic technology Wednesday morning on WOI-AM Radio’s “Talk of Iowa” show.

C2 is part of ISU’s strategic plan to become the best land grant university, Jischke said.

As a land grant university, ISU has historically been very involved in “the practice side of science,” Jischke said. As examples, he cited ISU’s contributions in developing hybrid corn, building of the first electronic digital computer, developing the algorithm that is the basis of the fax machine and making ethanol from corn.

C2, Cruz-Neira said, is a new way to get into the virtual environment. Other virtual reality systems only allow one person to use them at a time. However, C2 is a 12-foot square room with three vertical walls displaying 3-D images to create a virtual environment. Because it is housed in such a large room, five or six people can share in the virtual experience at a time, Cruz-Neira said.

“C2 has been described as the first prototype of the Star Trek ‘holodeck,'” Cruz-Neira said. However, she said it is far from being that.

“We’ll provide more and more immersion as technology improves,” Bernard said.

The 3-D images in C2 respond to people’s motions. Also, 3-D sound allows people to hear sounds coming from their left or right.

In addition, they are going to try to incorporate force feedback, a method by which when someone turns on a virtual radio, they will feel a click, Bernard said. Force feedback is complex but will add to the level of immersion.

Bernard estimated that ISU is among “the top half dozen universities in the country in terms of dealing with synthetic technology and virtual reality.”

Anyone wishing to tour the C2 program should call 294-3092 to reserve a visitation time. “We plan to take as many people as we can handle in a day,” Bernard said, but reservations are required.