A Virtual Reality CAVE Facility Will Be Built Inside Villanova’s Falvey Memorial Library

From Villanova U.:

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $1.67 million grant to Villanova University to develop a virtual reality CAVE facility that uses immersive video for telepresence applications as well as computer-generated graphics for 3D visualization. The grant is the largest NSF research grant ever awarded to the University. Villanova’s CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) will be housed in Falvey Memorial Library; this central campus location will allow the facility to be a university-wide resource, research tool and interactive classroom accessible to all Villanova students and faculty.

The interdisciplinary project is under the direction of Frank Klassner, Professor of Computing Sciences and Director of the Center of Excellence in Enterprise Technology (CEET) in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, in collaboration with Edmond Dougherty, Assistant Professor in the College of Engineering, and Darren Poley, Interim Director of Falvey Memorial Library.

The Villanova CAVE will feature an 18’ by 10’ by 7.5’ high enclosure in which 10-15 viewers can view three-dimensional imagery and immersive data displays. The CAVE will be configurable for applications requiring projections onto three walls and the ceiling, or onto three walls and the floor. Although the CAVE will support use of computer-generated rendered images, Villanova’s CAVE will have a unique development research focus on using immersive video spanning 360˚ horizontally and 120˚ vertically to present interactive real-world environments, with the ultimate goal of presenting them in real time over the Internet.

[Our emphasis] It will also be the first CAVE facility situated in a library setting with reserved time for public access.

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The primary components of this project include the structural CAVE itself, a video camera rig to help capture real-world environments for projection into the CAVE, and software to integrate the CAVE and video camera. The CAVE structure is expected to be completed late in the spring of 2014.

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The NSF award is effective Oct. 1, 2013, and the project will run through Sept. 30, 2017.

Learn More About the CAVE Project