MRI: Acquisition of a FLEX Reconfigurable Multi-User Immersive Visualization System

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This project, acquiring a reconfigurable multi-user immersive visualization system (Mechdyne FLEX), aims to support a new style of collaborative and interdisciplinary design and experimentation in the fields of human health and wellbeing, human cognition, human behavior, computer science, gaming and game-based applications, product design, language and linguistics, and digital arts and new media.FLEX provides opportunities to improve knowledge and perception of the world by enabling observation and manipulation of events and information that take place in remote spaces, are protracted or dilated in time, are hazardous, or are either too small or too large to view in intricate detail. FLEX also allows users to create realistic representations of places, people, sounds and sites that no longer exist (e.g., historical events), never existed (e.g., fantasy world), or may not be easily experienced (e.g., underwater), with applications for both research and education.Broader Impacts: The impact of FLEX on the research and training infrastructure will occur on several levels:- Research: Due to the high cost of an immersive visualization system, most design and experimentation are currently conducted in two-dimensional environments and with two-dimensional virtual objects. FLEX will have a profound impact on the kinds of designs and experiments that can be performed. Furthermore, FLEX will provide a natural bridge between engineering, social sciences and arts research areas and will facilitate collaborations with industry in Silicon Valley.- Undergraduate and graduate education: FLEX will enrich courses that are currently offered at the institution, trigger innovative new courses on virtual reality in various application areas, provide new ways of learning and experimenting, and open up new areas of research for graduate students.- Campus Impact: This system will be the first multi-user configurable immersive visualization system on the campus, where the instrument would be central to new initiatives and programs.Acquisition of the FLEX immersive visualization system will impact a number of research groups, both augmenting current research and opening up new areas of research. The system can make Science and Engineering (S&E) research, as well as training and education, more attractive to students (especially those who are underrepresented in the area). FLEX will create exciting and engaging components for research and education on campus. Applications to such fields as assistive technology and technology for health and healthy living will attract underrepresented students, due to their societal importance. FLEX will also be used to make Arts education more modern, and more digital. Broad dissemination of the research enabled by this instrument will take place through regular publications, conference and workshop presentations and technical reports. Websites that contain interactive visualization of the various research and training activities will be maintained, and inform the public about the roles of virtual reality in various application areas. The software developed will be released as open source, with potential for significant broader impact. The involvement of graduate and undergraduate students in the project provides mentoring opportunities.