Exploring CAVERNsoft Tele-Immersive Collaboratories

The COVE project is interested in the issues involved in effectively using collaborative VE environments, primarily in the field of scientific visualization. We have recently worked with researchers at EVL, ANUSF, and the ANU PRL to demonstrate a collaborative visualization environment for Plasma Fusion Studies at the SC'98 conference in Orlando, Florida. The Plasma Fusion visualization was part of a larger CAVERNsoft demonstration that was coordinated by the EVL staff, which in turn was part of the International Grid (iGrid)/STAR TAP demonstration. The iGRID is an "...international collaboration using advanced high-speed networks to access geographically-distributed computing, storage, and display resources". The Plasma Fusion collaborative environment that the COVE project is developing uses EVL's CAVERNsoft environment to support collaborative processing and EVL's Limbo application environment for visualization. The demonstration took place on the exhibition  floor of this year's SC'98 from November 8-11.

The VE collaborations involved one or more Immersadesks at SC'98 in Orlando (at the iGrid, Alliance, Argonne, and NLANR booths), CAVE-like systems in Japan and Singapore, and the Barco Baron in the ACSys VE lab. The Baron VE system at the ACSys VE Lab in Canberra was connected VIA the high performance APAN and TransPAC networks to the US vBNS high performance network through the STAR TAP node in Chicago. The vBNS then took the network traffic to the Orlando SC'98 site.  To see the route that the network packets took, please refer to the routing map.

For more information on the iGrid and the demo, please see the  iGrid press release, the iGrid web site , or the CAVERNsoft SC'98 site. For more information on the ACSys COVE project's participation in the demo, please contact the COVE project leader, Brian Corrie.

Pictures of the demo in action...

It is worth noting that most of the images of the actual virtual environment are from the Australian users perspective and all other users would see an avatar of the local user in their environments. The shaft with the red block at its base is the local users pointing device in the virtual space.
 

Jason Leigh's (from EVL) avatar (at the iGRID booth at SC'98)

Hong Yee from Singapore (in Singapore) and Abhinav from EVL (at the Alliance booth at SC'98)

Hong Yee from Singapore (in Singapore), Tomoko from Japan (in Japan), Abhinav from EVL (at the Alliance booth at SC'98), and Jason from EVL (at the iGRID booth at SC'98).

Brian Corrie from ANU (in Australia) with two other avatars from the point of view of a fourth participant.

Brian Corrie from ANU (in Australia) and Tomoko from Japan (in Japan) talking with Jason Leigh from EVL (at the SC'98 exhibition).

The Heliac collaboratory, the ACSys/COVE contribution to the SC'98 demo.

The National University of Singapore's collaboratory (a finite element analysis of a crash test of a Motorola pager) with 7 remote participants.

Brian Corrie (at the ACSys VE Lab in Canberra, Australia), explaining something of vast importance about the demo.

The audience at the ACSys VE Lab for the demo.