When you’re standing in the middle of Stony Brook University’s Reality Deck looking at a world map, you can see the organization of the continents that surround you—literally. Covering the four walls—and even the door—of the cave-like room are 416 27-inch screens containing a total of 1.5 billion pixels. If you want to get a more detailed look at one area of the globe, there’s no need for a zoom function. You can simply take a step toward one wall. As you get closer, you’ll begin to notice mountain ranges, coastal details, even cities. The Reality Deck is a video-gamer’s dream, a cutting-edge tool to visualize data, and the largest-resolution screen in the world today, by a factor of five.
The Reality Deck immersive visualization center at Stony Brook University surrounds viewers on all four sides with high-resolution images. Image courtesy of Stony Brook University.
The immersive 360-degree visualization facility is the brainchild of computer scientist Arie Kaufman, known for spearheading the development of virtual colonoscopies. His new effort, funded in part by a $1.4 million National Science Foundation grant, aims to change the way scientists interact with data. “Nowadays everyone is working with very large amounts of data, and it’s very difficult to navigate that data to get both context and details,” says Kaufman. Researchers analyzing a large image—whether it is the structure of a protein, an MRI scan, a photo from the Hubble, or a weather map—most often interact with the image through a single screen on their desk. To see close details of the image, they must zoom in and pan around, often losing track of which section of the broader picture they are looking at. “In the reality deck, you immediately have the context; it’s all around you,” says Kaufman. “And if you want the details, you just walk closer to the screen.”
The Stony Brook, NY, facility opened in November 2012 and is accepting project proposals from scientists around the world who want to use the facility for viewing graphical data. Already, they have begun a collaboration involving images of the Milky Way, have tested the use of the facility for doctors analyzing colonoscopy data, have launched a project with the Department of Defense to explore the use of immersive visualization for live reconnaissance video feeds, and have trained policemen using a full 360 degrees of simulation. However, there are countless other ways the facility can be used, says Kaufman. “Really any time you are looking at large datasets, this kind of immersive visualization can change the way you look at it.”