Visualization and Creativity in Immersive 3D Environments -- from Cave to YURT

May 20 and 21, 2015

sponsored by the Office of Brown University's 250th Anniversary, the Brown University Center for Computing and Visualization, Brown University Computing and Information Services, and the Brown University Sciences Library; the YURT has been developed with funding from NSF

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We are celebrating the opening of Brown's newest virtual reality environment, the YURT (YURT Ultimate Reality Theatre), in the context of the many decades of visual study that presaged it.
 

This immersive environment fully engages our visual senses for exploration and discovery in areas as diverse as planetary geology, mathematics, visual art, digital literature, and biology. With head and body-tracking, users control a virtual world shown on a room-sized, 100 million-pixel stereo display that completely surrounds them. You have to experience this unique instrument to truly understand and appreciate it.

Join us to learn about the future of virtual reality from some of the field's greatest innovators and to experience the reality for yourself. 

Please do two things immediately in order to attend:

 

Schedule

20 WEDNESDAY morning

9am-1pm

Attendees are invited to sign up for presentations in both new YURT and the legacy Cave on Wednesday morning, and subsequently on a drop-in basis throughout Thursday.

YURT: 180 George St (at Brook), Cave: Granoff Center, Studio 4, N330.

30 minute guided presentations at either site may be booked here.

 

20 WEDNESDAY afternoon -- all talks are in Granoff's Martino Auditorium

1:30-2 pm Welcoming remarks and introduction

2-3:15 Henry Fuchs: Keynote ("The Immersion Renaissance: Head-Worn Displays, Projectors, and the YURT")

3:15-4pm Coffee, Tea, snacks available

    Granoff Center, Foyer

4-5:15pm Fritz Drury ‘VR Design for Science’
    John Cayley ‘Teaching Literary Arts in an Immersive Audiovisual Environment’

5:30-6:30pm Reception and YURT Inauguration

with Provost Vicki Colvin

Please note the venue: Brown CIT Building, 3rd Floor

Thomas J. Watson Sr. Center for Information Technology

7:30 pm Symposium dinner for SELECTED participants

Venue: The Hope Club

 

21 THURSDAY -- all talks are in Granoff's Martino Auditorium

9:30am & throughout the day: Coffee, Tea, Pastries/Snacks

Granoff Center, Foyer

10-11:15am Steven Feiner ‘VR, AR, and the Future of User Interfaces’

Tom Banchoff

11:30-12:45pm Jim Head ‘Planetary Immersive VIrtual Reality: Transporting

Astronauts and Researchers to Planetary Surfaces and Learning to Work’

Dan Keefe: ‘Magical User Interfaces:  Bringing Interactivity to Immersive Science and Art’

1-1:45pm Pick-up lunch boxes in Granoff center or on your own locally

2:45-4pm Joe LaViola ‘3D Spatial User Interfaces: Past, Present, and Future
    from the Virtual to the Real’

Roderick Coover ‘Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project’

4-4:30pm Coffee & Tea

4:30-5:45pm Noah Wardrip-Fruin ‘The Power of Presence with Virtual Art’

    Opportuntity for general discussion.

6-6:30pm Symposium closing

 

FAQ

Parking may be limited, so we recommend carpooling or alternative methods of transportation if possible. You can find more information about parking and accessibility here. 

We'd be happy to! Please e-mail Tom Sgouros.