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Scalable Metadata Environments (MDEs) are an artistic approach for designing immersive environments for large scale data exploration in which users interact with data by forming multiscale patterns that they alternatively disrupt and reform. Developed and prototyped as part of an art-science research collaboration, we define an MDE as a 4D virtual environment structured by quantitative and qualitative metadata describing multidimensional data collections. Entire data sets (e.g.10s of millions of records) can be visualized and sonified at multiple scales and at different levels of detail so they can be explored interactively in real-time within MDEs. They are designed to reflect similarities and differences in the underlying data or metadata such that patterns can be visually/aurally sorted in an exploratory fashion by an observer who is not familiar with the details of the mapping from data to visual, auditory or dynamic attributes. While many approaches for visual and auditory data mining exist, MDEs are distinct in that they utilize qualitative and quantitative data and metadata to construct multiple interrelated conceptual coordinate systems. These "regions" function as conceptual lattices for scalable auditory and visual representations within virtual environments computationally driven by multi-GPU CUDA-enabled fluid dyamics systems.

In this paper, we present a stereoscopic research and training environment for archaeologists called ArtifactVis2. This application enables the management and visualization of diverse types of cultural datasets within a collaborative virtual 3D system. The archaeologist is fully immersed in a large-scale visualization of on-going excavations. Massive 3D datasets are seamlessly rendered in real-time with field recorded GIS data, 3D artifact scans and digital photography. Dynamic content can be visualized and cultural analytics can be performed on archaeological datasets collected through a rigorous digital archaeological methodology. The virtual collaborative environment provides a menu driven query system and the ability to annotate, markup, measure, and manipulate any of the datasets. These features enable researchers to re-experience and analyze the minute details of an archaeological site's excavation. It enhances their visual capacity to recognize deep patterns and structures and perceive changes and reoccurrences. As a complement and development from previous work in the field of 3D immersive archaeological environments, ArtifactVis2 provides a GIS based immersive environment that taps directly into archaeological datasets to investigate cultural and historical issues of ancient societies and cultural heritage in ways not possible before.

The digital imaging acquisition and visualization techniques described here provides a hyper-realistic stereoscopic spherical capture of cultural heritage sites. An automated dualcamera system is used to capture sufficient stereo digital images to cover a sphere or cylinder. The resulting stereo images are projected undistorted in VR systems providing an immersive virtual environment in which researchers can collaboratively study the important textural details of an excavation or historical site. This imaging technique complements existing technologies such as LiDAR or SfM providing more detailed textural information that can be used in conjunction for analysis and visualization. The advantages of this digital imaging technique for cultural heritage can be seen in its non-invasive and rapid capture of heritage sites for documentation, analysis, and immersive visualization. The technique is applied to several significant heritage sites in Luxor, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

We developed CalVR because none of the existing virtual reality software frameworks offered everything we needed, such as cluster-awareness, multi-GPU capability, Linux compatibility, multi-user support, collaborative session support, or custom menu widgets. CalVR combines features from multiple existing VR frameworks into an open-source system, which we use in our laboratory on a daily basis, and for which dozens of VR applications have already been written at UCSD but also other research laboratories world-wide. In this paper, we describe the philosophy behind CalVR, its standard and unique features and functions, its programming interface, and its inner workings.

The CAVE, a walk-in virtual reality environment typically consisting of 4–6 3 m-by-3 m sides of a room made of rear-projected screens, was first conceived and built in 1991. In the nearly two decades since its conception, the supporting technology has improved so that current CAVEs are much brighter, at much higher resolution, and have dramatically improved graphics performance. However, rear-projection-based CAVEs typically must be housed in a 10 m-by-10 m-by-10 m room (allowing space behind the screen walls for the projectors), which limits their deployment to large spaces. The CAVE of the future will be made of tessellated panel displays, eliminating the projection distance, but the implementation of such displays is challenging. Early multi-tile, panel-based, virtual-reality displays have been designed, prototyped, and built for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. New means of image generation and control are considered key contributions to the future viability of the CAVE as a virtual-reality device.

In the first 5 years of virtual reality application research at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), we created numerous software applications for virtual environments. Calit2 has one of the most advanced virtual reality laboratories with the five-walled StarCAVE and the world's first passive stereo, LCD panel-based immersive virtual reality system, the NexCAVE. The combination of cutting edge hardware, direct access to world class researchers on the campus of UCSD, and Calit2's mission to bring the first two together to make new advances at the intersection of these disciplines enabled us to research the future of scientific virtual reality applications. This chapter reports on some of the most notable applications we developed.

Recognizing the value of autostereoscopy for 3D displays in public contexts, we pursue the goal of large-scale, high-resolution, immersive virtual reality using lenticular displays. Our contributions include the scalable tiling of lenticular displays to large fields of view and the use of GPU image interleaving and application optimization for real-time performance. In this context, we examine several ways to improve group-viewing by combining user tracking with multi-view displays.