April 5, 2001
CHICAGO, IL -- Seeing "is" believing. Latin American scientists, many
for the first time, are experiencing a tele-immersive, collaborative
demonstration between North and South America, as part of a three-day
meeting in Chile to promote the use of high-performance networks to the
Latin American scientific community.
A team from University of Illinois at Chicago's Electronic Visualization
Laboratory (EVL) has deployed a virtual reality device -- an ImmersaDesk --
in Chile, to showcase bandwidth-intensive visualization technology. Back
home in Chicago, their colleagues manipulate and discuss 3D visualizations
of earthquake data, as well as a virtual pelvic floor model, with the Latin
American scientists.
The meeting, "Science, Culture and Education over Internet2," April 4-6 in
Valparaiso, Chile, is being broadcasted to the US over Internet2. See
http://encuentro-internet2.reuna.cl/
On site with the EVL team is Paul Morin, of University of Minnesota's
geology department, who is showing graphics simulations of earthquake and
other geological data he collaboratively developed with EVL research
scientist Jason Leigh and University of Michigan geologist Peter van Keken.
For the virtual pelvic floor, the EVL team connects back to Chicago to talk
with researcher Fred Dech, from UIC's Virtual Reality in Medicine Laboratory.
STAR TAP, the Chicago-based, next-generation information exchange point,
enables Chile's REUNA research and education network to access over 100 US
universities and national laboratories, and most of the world's premier
networks. In particular, REUNA peers with Internet2's Abilene at STAR TAP,
enabling the EVL team in Chile to perform collaborative virtual-reality
demonstrations among Valparaiso, Chicago and Ann Arbor.
Last September, Chile became the first South American country to connect to
STAR TAP. STAR TAP enables high bandwidth data, 45 Mb/s in the case of
REUNA, to flow between the networks. This international, interconnection
point is the only next-generation, policy-free exchange point in the world.
ImmersaDesk is a registered trademark of the Board of Trustees of the
University of Illinois. It was developed with funding from the US National
Science Foundation. See http://www.evl.uic.edu/EVL/VR
Contact:
Laura Wolf
Electronic Visualization Laboratory
University of Illinois at Chicago
laura@evl.uic.edu
