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A different take on virtual worlds

Thomas A. Finholt and Erik Hofer
School of Information
University of Michigan

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION
www.si.umich.edu UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Outline

Challenges of virtual organizing
– Understand cultural differences

Overview of CI usage
– Networking
– Computing
CI-based applications - VISIT
– HD Video Conferencing
– Immersive visualization
– Next-generation evaluation techniques


Lessons from virtual organizing


Understand cultural differences


Domain scientists
• Power distance
– Hierarchical
– Bias toward seniority
• Individualist
– “individual genius”
– Solo PI model
• Masculine
– Adversarial
– Competitive
• Uncertainty avoidance
– Highly skeptical of new
www.si.umich.edu
technologies UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

CI developers
• Power distance
– Egalitgarian
– Bias toward talent
• Individualist
– Use the Internet to
create worldwide
communities
– Project model
• Masculine
– Adversarial
– Competitive
• Uncertainty
avoidance
– Extremely open to new SCHOOL OF INFORMATION
www.si.umich.edu
technologies UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Plan for first contact


Another view of virtual worlds

Understand cultural differences

Communicate

Seek common ground


Tinker


• Seek small wins and leverage the work
of others
– Linus Torvalds's style of
development— release early and
often, delegate everything you can,
be open to the point of promiscuity—
came as a surprise. No quiet,
reverent cathedral-building here—
rather, the Linux community seemed
to resemble a great babbling bazaar
of differing agendas and approaches.
(Eric Raymond)
• Tinker and experiment
– To take advantage of the technology
one must engage directly with it, and
one must allow traditions of practice
to be flexibly influenced by it. (ACLS
report)


Sustain


Infrastructure for ultra-resolution
collaboration


SI maintains an experimental high performance
network, with 10 Gb/s links to SI North and West Hall
via r-bin-milr (located at SEB). Michigan Lambda Rail
(MiLR) provides high performance connectivity to
collaborating sites (Wayne State, UIC, NCSA, U.
Washington) and national networks.


SI is not a major consumer of HPC resources. A 6-
node AMD Opteron visualization cluster meets most
of VISIT's needs, though a TeraGrid development
allocation is under review for a joint project with
AOSS.

Various ultra-resolution
applications


SI collaborates in the development and
demonstration of high-quality video conferencing
technologies. Using the iHD1500 software, we
transmit low-latency, studio-quality HD video over
advanced networks at 1.5 Gb/s.


The STIET IGERT program, run in cooperation with
Wayne State University, uses an uncompressed
iHD1500 link to hold a weekly research seminar
between Ann Arbor and Detroit, using MiLR.

SI recently completed the construction of a new 100
megapixel OptIPortal tiled display. This cluster-driven
tiled display runs the Rocks Linux distribution and the
SAGE graphics middleware from UIC.

SI collaborates extensively with other units on the
application of advanced CI technologies. The
Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space
Sciences collaborated with SI in the development of a
50-megapixel OptIPortal.


Engagement with other units allows SI to study the
use of advanced CI 'in the wild.' An SI PhD student
and CoE UROP Undergraduate are working with the
AOSS display on study of visualization in the
classroom. SCHOOL OF INFORMATION

In addition to visualization, SI is developing
collaboration technologies that use these OptIPortals
as a platform. Component technologies include
laptop screen projection and multiple flavors of HD
video (uncompressed, DVCProHD, HDV)

In addition to 'big networking'-based projects, SI is
deploying a sensor network testbed to evaluate the
use of wireless sensors in studying the use of new
technologies.

These sensors monitor audio level in buildings as a
proxy for social activity. Visualizations of sensor data
provide 'social weather maps,' tracking pockets of
social activity in a space. Over a long time frame, we
can measure how new technologies (i.e. public
displays) change how physical space is used. SCHOOL OF INFORMATION

We are also developing ways to instrument CI
systems. We have embedded cameras in the seams
of our latest OptIPortal, which we will use to collect
usage data about the system.

We use the data from these cameras to compute eye
tracking coordinates, attention levels or other metrics
of interest in real time using computer-vision
techniques.

The future: Combining ultra-
resolution with virtual worlds
Multitouch, integrated instrumentation, social
sensing, and OptIPortals
– Context-aware ultra-resolution collaboration
OptIPortal availability
– International network of OptIPortals (~70)
– Approximately $900 per megapixel
OptIPortals as bridge between real and virtual
worlds
– Life-sized representation of avatars
– Reflection of real world into the virtual space


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Another view of virtual worlds

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Another view of virtual worlds