RI: Tera-Pixels: Using High-Resolution Pervasive Displays to Transform Collaboration and Teaching

该项目旨在为北卡罗来纳大学计算机系的办公室、教室和公共空间配备多台投影仪显示器，作为单一的广域逻辑计算机显示器，取代目前这些空间中基于CRT的传统显示器。这一基础设施将使计算机图形学、网络、多媒体网络、协作系统和人机交互方面的基础研究成为可能。这项研究将包括对未来显示环境的综合计算机系统研究工作和一个大规模的使用实验，以评估我们将构建的环境的影响。作为一个计算机系统研究项目，我们寻求探索支持高分辨率分布式计算机显示的新技术和系统架构。这一问题对计算机产业以及计算机科学和工程领域的未来增长和发展至关重要。现代计算机显示体系结构是1940年代S老式电视标准的直接结果，这些标准在当今的数字世界中已经过时。从共享处理器存储器块以恒定速率定期刷新的栅格显示器的概念是使用阴极射线管(CRT)作为早期计算机显示器的直接结果。此外，这种“栅格扫描”方法假定了一个具有最小状态和低级别接口的哑巴设备。我们相信，在显示器中提供本地智能将使显示设备的概念与驱动它的特定计算机脱钩。我们设想将显示器视为共享资源，独立于向其提供数据的特定计算平台进行操作。我们的方法提供从任何主机对显示器的无缝和对称访问，并支持多个主机同时连接到单个显示器。我们建议通过有效地传输显示的信息，并通过使用有效的传输和网络级别的服务质量机制来实现这一点。为显示界面开发更高级别的语义将提高带宽利用率。更高级别的界面和本地智能的组合还将改善交互，使内容流的呈现适应特定显示平台的能力。换句话说，智能显示器将根据显示器是在低分辨率移动设备上还是在墙上大小的会议室显示器上定制其呈现方式。同样，它将根据可用的通信带宽调整其显示。在这项计算机系统研究中，我们提出了四项新倡议。我们将研究和开发新的智能显示体系结构，能够克服传统帧缓冲体系结构的局限性。我们将开发更高级别和更高带宽效率的协议，用于将数据传输到可视显示器。扩大数字显示互联互通，使其更接近实时网络，从而增加其实用性和灵活性。最后，我们将开发虚拟显示所需的同步和可视上下文切换功能，以便将其用作分布式资源。其次，作为在办公室和教室使用广域显示器的大规模实验，我们试图研究我们提议的显示器架构对个人工作习惯和生产力、教学、学生指导以及小组和同伴合作的影响。我们将进行传统的用户研究，以评估我们建议建设的环境的影响和效率。无处不在的显示器，无论大小，与特定的计算机分离，将改变我们的生活、工作和学习方式。在工作场所，这些显示器将增强协作，并减少在计算机之间同步和传输文件的需要。在国内，智能显示器将提供前所未有的信息获取途径。例如，通常显示家庭照片的显示器可以查询天气预报。在学校，大型投影显示器通过支持来自任意来源的真实多媒体(多个、独立的媒体流和窗口)的呈现，有可能给教育和协作带来革命性的变化。

This project seeks to outfit offices, classrooms, and public spaces in the Computer Science Department at UNC with multi-projector displays that operate as a single wide-area logical computer display replacing the traditional CRT-based displays now found in these spaces. This infrastructure will enable fundamental basic research in computer graphics, networking, multimedia networking, collaborative systems, and human-computer interaction. The research will consist of an integrated computer systems research effort into the display environment of the future and a large-scale usage experiment to assess the impact of the environments we will construct.As a computer systems research project we seek to explore new technologies and system architectures for supporting high-resolution distributed computer displays. This problem is fundamental to the future growth and development of the computer industry and the fields of computer science and engineering. Modern computer display architecture is a direct result of 1940's vintage television standards, which are outdated in today's digital world. The notion of a raster display that is periodically refreshed from a block of shared processor memory at a constant rate is a direct result of using Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs) as early computer monitors. Moreover, this "raster-scan" approach assumes a dumb device with minimal state and a low-level interface. We believe providing local intelligence within displays will decouple the notion of a display device from the specific computer driving it.We envision treating displays as shared resources that operate independently of the specific computing platforms that present data to them. Our approach provides seamless and symmetric access to the display from any host, and supports multiple simultaneous host connections to a single display. We propose to achieve this via the efficient transport of displayed information, and through the use of effective transport and network-level mechanisms for quality-of-service. Developing higher-level semantics for display interfaces will improve bandwidth utilization. The combination of higher-level interfaces and local intelligence will also improve interaction with the ability to adapt the presentation of a content stream to the specific display platform. In other words, an intelligent display will tailor its presentation according to whether the display is on a low-resolution mobile device or a wall-sized boardroom display. It will, likewise, adapt its display according to available communication bandwidth.In this computer systems research we are proposing four new initiatives. We will investigate and develop new intelligent display architectures capable of overcoming the limitations of traditional frame-buffer architectures. We will develop higher-level and more bandwidth-efficient protocols for communicating data to visual displays. We will extend digital display interconnections so that they are more akin to real-time networks, thus increasing their utility and flexibility. Lastly, we will develop the synchronization and visual context-switching capabilities necessary to virtualize displays so that they can be used as distributed resources. Second, as a large-scale experiment into the use of wide-area displays in offices and classrooms we seek to study the effect of our proposed display architecture on personal work habits and productivity, teaching, student mentoring, and group and peer collaboration. We will undertake traditional user studies to assess the impact and efficacy of the environments we propose to construct.Broader Impact. Ubiquitous displays, large and small, and decoupled from specific computers, will transform the way we live, work, and learn. In the workplace, these displays will enhance collaboration, and alleviate the need to synchronize and transfer files between computers. At home, intelligent displays will provide unprecedented access to information. For instance, displays, which normally show family photographs, could be queried for weather forecasts. At school large projection displays have the potential to revolutionize education and collaboration by enabling the presentation of true multimedia (multiple, independent media streams and windows) from arbitrary sources.