The UCLA Visualization Portal is an exciting, dynamic place with multiple projects being worked on concurrently.  Projects are driven by the interests of the Research Scholars and the needs of the Visualization Portal.  A professional staff is on hand to guide the activities and to do software development.

Application research and development in the Portal spans a range of activities that includes the creation, development, documentation and distribution of production-level, open-sourced software for the specialized needs of researchers who work with experiential technologies. The software developed in the Visualization Portal is available for downloading.

UCLA researchers who want to become involved with Visualization Portal research activities - either ones listed here or new ones - should contact rnd@ats.ucla.edu.

Important Links

• Vis Portal Developed Software: vrNav2
• Sourceforge Projects: vrNav, Chromium, DMX, vrJuggler
• GIS and Mapping

Interest Areas

Following is a list of interest areas.

• Virtual World Applications

  Most of the activities in the Visualization Portal involve the building and navigation of virtual worlds.  UCLA archeologists and classicists build models of archeological sites and buildings as they appeared in  earlier times.  Campus architects build models of the campus that include alternative designs for new buildings.  Scientists build models from data generated by simulation programs.  These virtual worlds are navigated, or flown, as a tour of the data.  These models are used for research and instruction. 

  Portal development activities include developing the software for navigating these models.

  vrNav2

  vrNav2 is the main program used in the Visualization Portal to navigate through virtual reality models. vrNav2 was written on top of OpenSceneGraph and Iowa State University’s vrJuggler. Currently vrNav runs under Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.

  vrNav2:

  • Works with both architectural models and with models created from scientific data.  vrNav includes switch changes for architectural models and time-step changes for scientific models.
  • It can fly on fixed paths and save images which which moves and movies can be created. It can be used to create movies in which advances in time are interspersed with flying through space.
  • Works on Tiled Displays.
  • The collaborative feature of vrNav2 allows the same model to be flown simaltaneously at two differentlocations.
     

  vrNav2 is used more than any other application in the Visualization Portal. Almost every model is flown with it. Researchers at UCLA run it on desktop workstations, in labs, and at auxiliary locations. They take it with them on small Windows machines when they speak at conferences and at other universities. vrNav is available for download, and researchers at other universities both use it and collaborate with UCLA on new development. Almost all other virtual world applications and activities worked on by Portal staff and interns end up being incorporated into, or working with vrNav in some way.
   

  Collaborative Virtual Reality

  Collaborative VR is built into vrNav2
  

  vrNav Astronomical Objects Plugin

  This vrNav plugin can add one or more of  the following objects to the model that is loaded, for each date and time listed in a configuration file: sun, sun path, sun time sequence.  Using the vrNav GUI, users can toggle any of the objects from visible to invisible, change the date and time, and animate any of the sets of objects by incrementing or decrementing the month, day, year, hour, minute, or seconds. 

  Results: As discussed in the Archeology and Astronomy featured project, numerous ancient sites have some tie in to the positions of astronomical objects, such as the sun, on specific dates.  This project renders those visable.
   

  vrNav GUI

  The vrNav GUI, allows vrNav2 to be controlled from a GUI run on the same or on a different machine.  The, run-everywhere, GUI, is written in Java.  It can connect at any time to a running vrNav2 program and control the state of vrNav2.  It has separate panes for controlling the model, switches and date switches, time steps, and the ephemerides in the Astronimical Objects plugin.  It can be used to create jump to points and to jump to them and it can control path playback through a model. 

• Models

  Numerous models have been built in the Modeling Lab.  Each model is the result of extensive research.