ITR/SI: Real-Time Long-Distance Terascale Computation for Full Bandwidth Tele-Immersion

远程沉浸，一种与遥远的个人、情境和环境分享存在感的能力，可能在不久的将来为人类体验和互动提供巨大的新可能性。为了使这些梦想成为现实，必须解决一系列技术难题：获取、通信、显示和交互。这个项目的重点是回答两个主要问题：1)远程沉浸是否像它承诺的那样好，还是有一些固有的弱点？通过使用强大的计算能力，PI希望加速开发，以便在三年内试用一个真正的系统。2)是否有远距离沉浸式的限时装置？PI将尝试真实的距离，而不仅仅是通过人为延迟模拟距离。具体来说，PI将在宾夕法尼亚大学建立一个60个摄像头的系统，在匹兹堡超级计算中心的3000个处理器的Terascale计算系统上进行深度计算，并在北卡罗来纳大学进行显示。PI将在北卡罗来纳大学拥有一个更温和的采集系统（15个摄像头），在宾夕法尼亚大学拥有一个更温和的显示系统，以实现本地开发和双向合作。测试平台的应用将是创伤外科医生的远程医疗咨询，选择它是因为它对实时响应的固有需求和对社会的巨大潜在利益。PI希望能够在项目的三年期间内提供可证明的进展。负责创伤外科的团队成员将指导设计；评估将由其他创伤外科医生进行。三年的努力将产生一个可测试的原型，它具有足够的功能和范围，可以由研究团队以外的应用程序专家进行评估。研究结果将表明其他远程沉浸式应用可能取得成功，同时也为通过快速广域网在远程太万亿级设施上构建实时应用提供经验。

Tele-immersion, an ability to share presence with distant individuals, situations, and environments, may provide vast new possibilities for human experience and interaction in the near future. In order to make these dreams a reality, a host of technical difficulties must be solved: acquisition, communication, display, and interaction. This project focuses on answering two of the major questions: 1) Is tele-immersion as good as its promise or is there some inherent weakness? By using overwhelming computation power, the PI hopes to accelerate development so a real system can be tried within three years. 2) Is there a show-stopper with tele-immersion over long distances? The PI will try it for real, not just simulated distance via artificial delays. Specifically, the PI will build a 60-camera system at the University of Pennsylvania, compute depth on the 3000-processor Terascale Computing System at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, and display at the University of North Carolina. The PI will have a more modest acquisition system at UNC (15 cameras) and a more modest display system at UPenn to enable local development and two-way collaboration. The testbed application will be remote medical consultation by a trauma surgeon, chosen because of its inherent demand for real-time response and its great potential benefit to societal. The PI expects to be able to provide demonstrable progress within the three year period of the project. Team members who are leading trauma surgeons will guide the design; evaluation will be by other trauma surgeons. The three years of effort will lead to a testable prototype with sufficient power and scope to be evaluated by application experts not on the research team. The results will indicate the likely success of other tele-immersion applications, as well as providing experience in building real-time applications on a remote terascale facility over fast wide-area networks.