Jody Strausser is an assistant professor of modeling and simulation at TCC, Tidewater Community College, where he was invited to setup a two-year program specializing in computer modeling. He quickly realized that they needed a good visualization lab for it to be effective, and with tiled-displays being all the rage he begun to look into costly projectors to build an immersive full-scale visualization system.
Strausser, instead, went with Mersive Technologies’ Mersive Desktop, which combines the images from three off-the-shelf projectors (TCC’s are from Canon) into one large, seamless image. The program is run from a desktop or laptop computer, and it can project any content that can run on the computer. The trick, though, is that Mersive Desktop uses its own software and a camera to calibrate the images, reading specific feedback patterns from the projectors, feeding the information to Mersive’s server software, and the software automatically aligns the projectors (in the software). It basically tells the computer how to “stitch” the projector outputs together to form a large, seamless display.
But what are the benefits of this large 27-foot screen?
Strausser said that when viewing modeling and simulation projects on a small computer screen, it is easy to overlook some of the details. With the large screen, students realize their work will be seen by the entire class, so they want their work to be precise. “With projection, students who created a tank, for example, may see that the tank is actually floating above the ground. On a 27-foot screen, those details really stick out.”
Engaging Students with Giant Visualization — Campus Technology.
