Principle Investigator:

Robert A. Hunter, rhunter@vt.edu, (540) 951-8670

Project Advisors:

Dr. Ronald D. Kriz, rkriz@vt.edu
Jason Lockhart, jlockhar@vt.edu

Title:

Creating a Low cost Working Environment for CAVETM Development Using Diverse and Linux

Background:

The CAVETM, Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, is a high-resolution 3D Multi-wall total immersion environment. The CAVETM accomplishes this by using stereo projections and glasses to convince the brain that there is only one 3D image. (Reference http://www.sv.vt.edu/future/vt-cave/whatis/)

DIVERSE, Device Independent Virtual Environments- Reconfigurable Scalable Extensible, is an open-source (GNU LGPL) software Application Programming Interface (API), available for download free of charge. DIVERSE is comprised of the DIVERSE graphics interface for Performer (dgiPf) which provides a framework to implement 3D Virtual Environment (VE) applications and the DIVERSE ToolKit (DTK) which is used by dgiPf to provide access to local and networked VE interaction devices. (Reference http://www.diverse.vt.edu/)

Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world. Developed under the GNU General Public License , the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone. (Reference http://www.linux.org/)

Project Objectives:

The main objectives of this class project will be:

1. Get a working DIVERSE environment on a Linux based computer.

2. Port any tools necessary to do DIVERSE development from an SGI Irix environment a Linux environment. This may also include creating new tools for importing data into DIVERSE.

3. Create step by step examples of how to program in DIVERSE that can be used to tech others to use this new programing environment.

Tools:

I will be using C based compilers and libraries while constructing a working version of DIVERSE for the Linux environment. The new example models will be constructed using the DIVERSE language itself. The final presentation will be made using a standard text editor for HTML coding, the Gimp image manipulation program, and Macromedia director.