HCC:Small:Collaborative Research: Exploring the Use of Immersive Virtual Reality Technologies for Scientific Research, Communication, and Outreach

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The goals of this study are to explore the utility of the emerging immersive virtual reality (VR) technologies and virtual worlds (VWs) for scientific and educational uses in the framework of astrophysics and related fields. This work will be done under the auspices of the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA), the first professional scientific organization based exclusively in VWs, representing an experiment in scientific organization and communication by itself. However, the results should be more broadly applicable to most other fields of science and scholarship. Demonstrating the potential and the utility of these emerging technologies to the academic community at large will help engage and facilitate a broader participation of scientists and educators in these developments. Specifically, the research will explore the following topics: (1) The uses of VWs as scientific collaboration and communication environments, ranging from individual and group discussions, to seminars and scientific conferences and workshops. (2) Novel ways of user interaction and interfacing with numerical simulations, in terms of the setup, adjustments, and interpretation of results, especially in an interactive/collaborative setting. (3) Immersive and interactive visualization of highly complex, multi-dimensional data sets, for a direct visual exploration, data mining, and as publishable presentations in electronic media. (4) Uses of WVs as a novel, interactive educational and public outreach platform. (5) An initial exploration of the data architectures and structures for the next generation of the Web with a VR user interface, and interaction of human avatars and intelligent software agents. (6) Investigate VW developments in the non-proprietary Opensim/Opengrid environments. This effort will develop new modalities of scientific research and communication using new VR and VWs technologies in the domain of astrophysics but having positive impacts for comparable fields of science as well. It can open qualitatively new ways in which scientists interact among themselves, with their data, and with their numerical simulations, and thus foster some genuine new "computational thinking" approaches to science and scholarship. Virtual worlds will become a platform to conduct rigorous research activities in the fields of computational astrophysics and data-intensive astronomy, seeking to determine the potential of these new technologies, as well as to develop a new set of best practices for scholarly and research activities enabled by them, and by a combination of the existing Web-based and the new VR technologies. The central idea behind this project is that immersive VR and VWs are potentially transformative technologies on par with the Web itself, which can and should be used for serious purposes, including science and scholarship. By conveying this idea to professional scientists and scholars, and by leading by example, the project aims to engage a much broader segment of the academic community in utilizing, and developing further these technologies. The work will include an active and multi-facetted program of education and public outreach, which will foster the public understanding of both science and information technology.