Active Visualization in a Multidisplay Immersive Environment

Building a system to actively visualize extremely large data sets on large tiled displays in a real time immersive environment involves a number of challenges. First, the system must be completely scalable to support the rendering of large data sets. Second, it must provide fast, constant frame rates regardless of user viewpoint or model orientation. Third, it must output the highest resolution imagery where it is needed. Fourth, it must have a flexible user interface to control interaction with the display. This paper presents the prototype for a system which meets all four of these criteria. It details the design of a wireless user interface in conjunction with a foveated vision application for image generation on a tiled display wall. The system emphasizes the parallel, multidisplay, and multiresolution features of the Metabuffer image composition architecture to produce interactive renderings of large data streams with fast, constant frame rates.