April 25, 2001

An Overview of the bp Center for Visualization at CU
Geoff Dorn, Executive Director, bp Center for Visualization

Abstract.

The University of Colorado at Boulder is establishing a new interdisciplinary center, the bp Center for Visualization, dedicated to immersive visualization research. Immersive visualization allows people to see and interact in an intuitive fashion with data projected into a 3-D environment. Use of this technology takes advantage of the human mind's ability to intuitively understand complex structures and data in three dimensions. It greatly improves understanding of spatial and other relationships within the data.

The Center will be founded using assets donated to CU by bp (formerly BP Amoco). With the donation, the University of Colorado will establish three immersive facilities operated by the Center. The main Immersive Visualization Environment (IVE), a state-of-the-art re-configurable immersive room will be established at the Center's primary home on CU's East Campus. The second facility, a slightly smaller non-reconfigurable IVE, will be installed at CU's Health Sciences Center (HSC) Fitzsimons Campus in Aurora, CO. The Center will also have a presence in the new Discovery Learning Center where students and professors will have access to a bench-size 3-D system.

The bp Center for Visualization will have a four-fold purpose: research, development, commercialization and education. The Center will pursue research in the general areas of visualization, human perception, and human/machine interaction in immersive environments. Areas of initial applications R&D will include the geoscience, aerospace and medical applications. Applications R&D will be extended to a broad range of other disciplines through collaboration with professors and research scientists at CU's Boulder Campus, at other CU campuses, and at other universities, with government agencies, and with industry.