{Facility}

    

Overview: 

The GigaPixel Display Laboratory at Virginia Tech's Center for Human-Computer Interaction is a flexible facility supporting advanced research on future user interfaces and visualization.  The facility integrates a diverse equipment including:

• 100-200 MegaPixels, growing towards a GigaPixel
• Reconfigurable LCD and rear-projection display arrays
• Specialized display systems such as IBM BigBertha and SmartBoard.
• Diverse input devices and sensors, via integration with the AwareLab (e.g. Vicon, 6dof)
• Computing clusters (Linux and Windows)
• Software architecture

Key unique features of the facility are:

• Very high resolutions
• Rapidly reconfigurable design enables the displays to be transformed into many different form factors on demand
• Multiple display and input device technologies, for empirical comparison
• Scalability, by adding LCD tiles, stackable rear-projection blocks, or input sensors

The facility enables advanced research and applications of large-scale, high-resolution display and interaction:

• Massive data visualization
• Novel interaction techniques
• Display technologies
• Form factors
• Collaborative multi-user systems
• Control room simulation
• Educational applications

 

Equipment:

Stackable rear-projection VisBlocks, by VisBox.  18 blocks can be arranged in various forms:
      

LCD tiled array, Linux desktop, using DMX and Chromium.  24 tiled LCDs can be reconfigured in flat or immersive curved forms:
  
      

Windows desktop, see Making a 0.01 GigaPixel
  

Cluster driven graphics:
  

Diverse input devices and user tracking equipment, including VICON system:
  

 

50 LCD tiled array, 100 MegaPixels, touchscreens, coming soon!

 

Research:

The GigaPixel Display Laboratory is available for use.  Current research projects using the facility can be found at: 

• Laboratory for Information Visualization and Evaluation, high-resolution visualization
• VisLab, aware spaces
• 3Di Group, interaction
• Center for Human-Computer Interaction. 

See also the Virginia Tech CAVE.

 

Location:

Corporate Research Center (CRC)
Knowledge Works II
2202 Kraft Drive
Blacksburg, VA
(540)xxx-xxxx (lab), or (540)231-9643 (Dr. Xiong and North)
 

Contact:  Chris North, Center for Human-Computer Interaction & Dept of Computer Science, Virginia Tech

 

This facility is constructed with support from:
National Science Foundation, National Geospatial-intelligence Agency, and ARDA