"The ImmersaDesk and Infinity Wall Projection-Based Virtual Reality Displays"
The ImmersaDesk and Infinity Wall Projection-Based Virtual Reality Displays
Czernuszenko, M., Pape, D., Sandin, D., DeFanti, T., Dawe, G., Brown, M.
Artist’s Rendition of Infinity Wall
Credit: A. Cruz, EVL
Virtual Reality (VR) can be defined as interactive computer graphics that provides viewer-centered perspective, large field of view and stereo. Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) and BOOMs™ achieve these features with small display screens which move with the viewer, close to the viewer’s eyes. Projection-based displays supply these characteristics by placing large, fixed screens more distant from the viewer. The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) of the University of Illinois at Chicago has specialized in projection-based VR systems. EVL’s projection-based VR display, the CAVE™, premiered at the SIGGRAPH ’92 conference.
In this article we present two new, CAVE-derived, projection-based VR displays developed at EVL: the ImmersaDesk™ and the Infinity Wall™, a VR version of the PowerWall [9]. We describe the different requirements which led to their design, and compare these systems to other VR devices.