Science has never been so cool.
Dr. Amy Banic, assistant professor of computer science at UW, is researching 3D user interfaces and environments to help other scientists visualize and experience their data. Banic contends that scientists being able to see their data in three dimensions will facilitate breakthroughs in the same way two dimensional graphs did.
“There are a lot of benefits to visualizing information in 2D because it’s really hard to visualize a sheet full of numbers. It’s even more of an improvement when the data is three dimensional,” she said. “It’s important to see relationships between data points, but you lose the ability to fully engage in it when you’re just using a desktop.”
The screen that the 3D images are projected onto is surrounded by cameras that are pointed to its front-center. The cameras reflect infrared light off 3D glasses with white balls attached to it as reference points, like the film industry uses for motion capture for CGI. This allows the viewer to move in the 3D world naturally, as the screen will change its vantage point to correspond with where they are looking. It is something you would expect on a sci-fi movie set.
“We have a different view from each eye, that’s the reason we see depth. There are different ways to simulate this effect,” Banic said. “The glass used in movie theatres use polarized glasses, but we use shutter glasses. They open and close the view to each eye as it also alternates the two projected images, switching back and forth. The 3D effect is called an immersive- stereoscopic effect.
Placing data in a 3D environment will help scientists utilize all senses to discover what secrets they hold. It also will present an alternative for training, which would come in particularly helpful in industries like medicine.
“It’s a low-cost immersive environment to help people do their work,” she explained. “I’ve had one person lay down to look at their data from the bottom and find something brand new they’ve never seen before.”
They have experimented with a rewired a Wii remote to maneuver in 3D environments more naturally. Similarly, they have designed a smartphone app that allows users to maneuver up, down, left, right, forward and backwards, much like joysticks on game controllers.
“The idea works on the premise that most people have a smartphone or an iPad,” Banic said. “We are looking to find better techniques to interact with the environment naturally, to interact and explore environments they didn’t know they could have access to.”
Anyone interested in a demonstration or research can contact Amy Banic at abanic@uwyo.edu to set up an appointment.
