GreenLight BlackBox 2.0

Project Overview

These CalVR display modes allow two users to simultaneously use the StarCAVE or Nexcave with dual head tracking, while minimizing parallax in a balanced manner for both users.

There are two modes under which the display will operate: single-user mode and multi-user mode. Under single-user mode, the display is perfect for the primary user and ignores any other head trackers in the CAVE. Under multi-user mode, each screen is partitioned into multiple zones, each of which is visualized by an independent camera. Each camera is set via an interpolation between the two users that is weighted based on how directly each user is facing the respective zone. When both users face directly at the same zone, that zone's camera location is set to balance the view-error between the users evenly, resulting in an equal amount of minimal immersion loss for each users. When both users face opposite sides of the cave, the zones cameras will be positioned purely based on the user's tracking that is facing that zone, resulting in each user seeing the zones before them in optimal quality (as the other user is ignored). When one user is looking directly at a zone and the second user is seeing the zone only peripherally, the camera is positioned to display the zone better for the user facing directly at the zone. The interpolation between the user locations, based on the users' orientations, is continuous and determined independently for each zone, resulting in a more continuous screen image as the zone quantity increases.

Status

• Load in BlackBox
• Load in racks/doors/waterpipes/electrical within box (separate entities)
• Racks & doors interaction/animation
• Populate the racks with hardware components based on files
• (High-level) Config file mapping for components to textures -- No more need to make individual server models.
• Update hardware data from remote site (message sending instead of file reading, no NFS delay)
• Transparency mode for non-component entities
• Read in power consumption data from remote site and display it via color gradients, relative to expected value for the component
• Selection interface to target specific components in the racks

To-Do

• Heuristics for expected min/max wattage values per component
• Read in power consumption data over a range of time in the past and display (animate through) it

Future Work

• Auto-pilot version of plugin (for demos, especially when a wand isn't available)
• Run through OssimPlanet
• Temperature zones (pull data and display)
• Temperature zones over a range of time from the past, animate through

Participants

Software Developers:

• John Mangan

Project Advisors:

• Jurgen Schulze

Development Assistance:

• Philip Weber

• Andrew Prudhomme