VizWorld.com

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has just completed a 5-year project called “Urban Photonic Sandtable Display”, or UPSD, that creates realtime, color, 360-degree 3D holographic displays.  Without any special goggles, an entire team of planners can view a large-format (up to 6-foot diagonal) interactive 3D display.

UPSD is based on full-parallax technology, which enables each 3D holographic object to project the correct amount of light that the original object possessed in each direction, for full 360- degree viewing. Current 3D displays lack full-parallax and only provide 3D viewing from certain angles with typically only three to four inches of visual depth.

Looks like the technology was developed by Zebra Imaging, and is currently being deployed to an Air Force lab and two Army labs for use.

via defence.professionals | defpro.com.

Science darpa, hologram, interactive, research, zebra imaging

Kitware, the company behind such visualization classics as VTK, ITK, and ParaView, have just received $11 Million from DARPA to take their ‘VIRAT’ project to Phase 2.  In Phase 1 (completed), Kitware developed several algorithms and systems to take the aerial surveillance data from Predators and other drones and track small low-moving objects over time, and capture various events and information for analyst feedback.  It was a huge undertaking, and now Kitware will get the chance to actually build and deploy an end-user system.

In Phase II, the Kitware team will deploy a VIRAT prototype at an end-user facility, and train analysts in its operation. Their evaluation and feedback will provide researchers with critical data to incorporate into upgrades and enhancements.

The team will also continue to develop and apply cutting-edge research into the hard problems in descriptors, indexing, iterative query refinement, and descriptor fusion. One of the many research thrusts in Phase II will be to incorporate more computed and supplied scene knowledge directly into the descriptors, and to more effectively leverage available metadata such as view point and sun angle. Augmenting system capabilities to allow for additional video sources, both from UAV’s and ground cameras, will also be a top priority.

Of course, some of this is a bit beyond Kitware’s reach.  To hit some of the hardware and systems integrations objectives, they’ve partners up with some big boys in the Military industry: Honeywel, Raytheon, Mayachitra, BAE, Lockheed Martin,, and General Dynamics.  There are university partners as well, consisting of a veritable who’s who of visualization science.

The phase-2 project is expected to take 18 months, led by Kitware’s Drs. Anthony Hoogs and Amitha Perera.

via DARPA Awards Kitware $11 Million for Phase II of VIRAT Program.

Science darpa, kitware, military

DARPA, the Pentagon’s mad-scientist division, has awarded Lockheed Martin $1m to develop “daylight-readable, see-through, low-profile, ergonomic” color video glasses.  That’s a tall order, and Lockheed Martin will be working with Microvision to build it.

The Lockheed-Microvision deal is part of a US military project named Urban Leader Tactical Response, Awareness & Visualization (ULTRA-Vis). It’s intended to equip American combat troops not only with see-through video specs but also with a cunning “gesture recognition” interface allowing squad leaders to effectively scribble on the real world – for instance marking a door, and having the same mark show up in their teammates’ specs as well.

The US military has been investing in Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality for years, but hopefully whatever they come up with will eventually make it down to public consumer level.

via $1m for seethrough vidspecs in DARPA VR war-graffiti plan • The Register.

Hardware augmented reality, darpa, military