Christie creates baffling 3D HD CAVE 'visual environment,' or your average Halo display in 2020
By Darren Murph 
posted July 8th 2010 4:20PM
posted July 8th 2010 4:20PM
World's First 3D High-Definition Visual Environment Features Unprecedented Levels of Resolution for Unique Immersive Experience
CYPRESS, CA – (July 7, 2010) – Christie®, a leader in professional displays and visualization solutions, announced that its groundbreaking 3D High Definition CAVE™ is helping Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City achieve breakthrough findings in biomedical research. The David A. Cofrin Center for Biomedical Information at the HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine is powered by eight Christie Mirage 3-chip DLP® projectors with active stereo capability. The Christie projectors deliver a resolution of 1920x1920 (3.68 megapixels) per wall – 334% higher resolution than most previous CAVEs. The results are superior 3D images that set new standards in molecular modeling and other avenues of biomedical research.
"The ICB's CAVE facility is a powerful new tool that is helping us attract the best and brightest minds in the world," remarked Dr. Harel Weinstein. "We are able to explore images at the molecular and cellular level with a clarity and precision that was previously unattainable. Images of tissues and biological objects can be twisted, turned and expanded, viewed layer by layer with the flick of the wrist, allowing for an unmatched level of inspection that engulfs researchers in colors and details."
Vanessa Borcherding, Systems Administrator for the Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, remarked, " The ICB is focused on enabling computational methodologies in the biological sciences, including genome studies, molecular modeling and modeling of cell and organ systems. The Cofrin Center's Facility allows us to take many pieces of data from a computer and reconstruct it in an immersive 3D environment to help researchers make decisions and gain insights quickly and intuitively."
Borcherding added, "Pixel density is key to visualizing the vast amount of data we need to analyze. We chose Christie because they were the only company to propose a genuine high definition CAVE™ solution, which no one else could offer. We were especially impressed with their forward-thinking, innovative approach, their expertise in building visualization facilities, and their ability to perfectly integrate this technology to meet not only our technical needs, but our rigid engineering requirements as well."
Since going live, the Institute's researchers have leveraged this technology to help guide them to discovery in a number of different domains, from providing new insights into the mechanisms behind short-term memory, to elucidating how cocaine and dopamine bind at the neurotransmitter site in the cell's transporters, to collecting valuable longitudinal data on the structural development of the brains of children whose mothers abused drugs.
The facility has also used the 3D CAVE™ to study MRI images to successfully identify areas of the brain that are underdeveloped in children whose mothers engaged in substance abuse while pregnant. Dr. Luis Gracia, Scientific Application Specialist with the ICB, built a fully automated rendering pipeline using software from Harvard to help researchers visualize the brains of these children over time to track the development of various regions. Being able to get children in therapies sooner based on these study results can correct a large amount of the deficit that they would normally experience if not treated as quickly.
"It comes down to the fact that using the Visualization Facility, we are able to envision things that simply cannot be envisioned any other way," said Jason Banfelder, Assistant Professor and Technology Engineer of the ICB. "This is one of the few facilities of its kind dedicated exclusively to biomedical research applications. We see extensive opportunities not only for our own work, but also for wider collaboration with other research groups as stereoscopic displays and virtual and augmented reality enter the mainstream."
"The Weill Cornell CAVE™ is a unique and powerful new tool that supports Weill Cornell's mission of medical education and scientific research," said Zoran Veselic, vice-president, Visual Environments, Christie. "Christie's highly customized Advanced Visualization solutions are based on deployable and proven technology and are found in some of the world's most prominent Virtual Reality and advanced visualization environments."
Veselic added: "Weill Cornell Medical College enjoys a worldwide reputation for excellence in its field. Using the latest technology to enhance and expand medical science and health services worldwide is a hallmark of their success. Christie is proud to be part of this extraordinary legacy and looks forward to helping Weill Cornell usher in a new era of CAVE™ technology for medical research."
The 3D immersive visualization room is in the Cofrin Center for Biomedical Information of the HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell. It is located within the newly built Weill Greenberg Center, a building widely praised for its architectural design that promotes an exceptional patient-centered experience.
About Weill Cornell's Institute for Computational Biomedicine
The Weill Medical College of Cornell University has founded the Institute for Computational Biomedicine, whose aim is to bring together a critical mass of theorists and experimentalists to tackle the most challenging questions in systems biology.
In the last decade there have been major technological advances in the field - the development of large scale methods for recording cellular activity, high throughput tools for monitoring gene expression, rapid screens for measuring behavioral performance, and powerful mathematical tools (statistical and dynamical systems-based) for analyzing and interpreting complex datasets. These advances open the door to major scientific discoveries and conceptual breakthroughs. The Institute's mission is to provide the resources and nurture the collaborative, multi- disciplinary environment that will make such breakthroughs possible. For more information, visit http://icb.med.cornell.edu.
Dang it, my biomed buddies were right ... the really cool toys are reserved for geneticists. Sure, they "say" they need it for modeling protein folding but you KNOW they're going to run MW2 on it.
@Langdon Alger
Bungie FTW! :)
@Langdon Alger
Man, I'm old. I went to MechWarrior 2...
@pixelator He he, don't feel too bad ... I had to stop and think as well ... "Wait, before I get blasted for this, is this game still considered GPU-intensive?" *yells at grandson* "What do you no-good whipper snappers play these days on that stupid arcade box?" Good times ...
AMEN!
@Langdon Alger I wish I were one of them, I'd definitely do that!
Can I get a hallelujah? Real scientists always make you say hallelujah!
@DoctarPeppar Surely, you meant to say real scientologists.
Theres a bright future for Call of duty. Maybe Modern Warfare 5?
i've seen this at the medical college. it's pretty impressive. dont think they're gonna release for MW5 or any gaming any time soon hahaha....
Whenever I hear "Christie", I think of cookies.
@HacksawJimDuggan
Me too...and I work there :P
Christie has some amazing ideas and technologies. Check out christiedigital.com for their tech videos and product info.
So much more industry changing projects you'll all soon hear about.
That's very impressive, with plenty of potential, not just for protein work!
Duke University already has one! http://vis.duke.edu/dive
Amen!
Amen Brotha!!!!
except Halo isnt 3D and kinect is trash for core genres like fps.
you'd be better with Killzone 3 as it already supports 3D and the playstation move (which works great for fps)
just calling it as i see it?
@unboring True, but Kinect is more original.
Motion controls are poor for core games as we know them.
I love how Sony has won you over with Move support for core titles. I'm playing Halo with a controller and still buying Kinect, as it (and Move) will never replace core titles as we know them, but still be worth my money and time.
@BlackedOut
they're all crap for fps compared to a proper mouse+keyboard combo
i need this like i need my bong
@xKNGx
...really badly?
We have something like this at UAB too. I'm not sure there is really any scientific justification, but it's fun.
Seizures in 3... 2... 1....
I went to college at The University of Illinois (in Urbana), graduated in 2002, and had the opportunity to give tours of their CAVE installation. When I was there, they had 4 sides (3 walls and the floor). I had the opportunity, after much luck and some cajoling, to play a version of Quake II that was ported to the SGI cluster that ran the thing (by some of the grad students, in their spare time). It was AWESOME. The only problem was I kept running into the walls while trying to strafe with my feet instead of with the controller.
Really? "This particular version easily trumps prior iterations"??
http://www.mechdyne.com/press/2009/webgallery/KAUST_PR.htm
Try 100MP on for size.
I want one! I'm feel envy for my children. In 2030, this will be their game controller running games in what we fools call CGI, today.
So the first CAVE, created back in 1992, had 1280 x 1024 stereo views all around. 18 years later, an improvement of only 2.8x (pixels) doesn't really sound so impressive.
AMEN and HALLELUJAH
Unless it comes paired with
http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/30/halos-covenant-laser-tag-guns-coming-in-october/
and
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/15/project-grizzly-inventor-crafts-real-world-halo-suit-for-militar/
there will not be an amen for you just yet :P
Not to blow my own university's trumpet... but we have way more than that! for starters it's 24 4096x2160 projectors!! Don't believe me?
http://www.kaust.edu.sa/research/labs/visualization.html?submenuheader=1
Ciao!
@Pass1 Not to mention the Meyer Sound system that can literally blow the supposedly better "prior iterations" away!
Seriously, this is new and cool? Do your research better! There have been CAVE systems out for years there much bigger and with far, far more pixels!
http://www.mechdyne.com/press/2005/PR-110805-LANL.htm
http://www.mechdyne.com/press/2006/PR-051806-ISU.htm
http://www.mechdyne.com/press/2009/webgallery/KAUST_PR.htm
This is kind of old hat - although, admittedly not at HD resolutions. Tech BC in Canada had a SGI-built setup that used two 5'x5' screens and active shutter glasses to allow you to inspect protein molecules in fantastic 3D detail. When? 10 years ago.