Tiled Display Walls - Relation to the Access Grid and Other Systems

1
Tiled Display Walls - Relation to the Access Grid
and Other Systems

• Mike Walterman,
• Manager of Graphics Programming,
• Scientific Computing and Visualization Group,
• Boston University

2
Introduction

• Thank you to Ivan Judson at Argonne National Labs
• Objective of the presentation
• - Provide an outline of the functional aspects
  of integrating AG nodes and DVDW
• - Address some of the anticipated technical
  challenges
• Main topics
• - Brief functional description of the DVDW
• - Brief functional description of the AG nodes
• - What it means to integrate the two systems
• - Technical challenges
• - Development directions
• - Conclusions

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DVDW Functional Description

• Project at Boston Universitys scientific
  computing and visualization group.
• Create large format display of, and interaction
  with, visual stereo imagery and directional sound
• Tiled display
• Content includes, but is not limited to
• - Static images
• - Video/movies
• - 3D animation
• - Reactive environments
• - Directional audio

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Tiled Display Wall (DVDW)

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What Is an Access Grid Node

• An active space that provides a group interface
  to grid computing resources in a collaborative
  way.
• - The access grid defines a core set of digital
  streams, plus a set of
• interfaces and protocols for incorporating
  other content.
• - The core streams generated by a single access
  grid node include
• 4 320x240 H.261 video streams.
• 1 16khz, 16 bit uncompressed audio
  stream.
• Power point event streams display (if
  mastering the presentation).
• Each access grid node is enabled to receive the
  streams of the other collaborating nodes by
  providing a large format display device.

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What Does It Mean to Integrate an AG Node With
the DVDW

• What do you get?
• - High resolution immersive display
  system
• - More context transfer
• - More immersion for DVDW users
• - Better sense of presence
• - Distributed technology
• - Teleconferencing
• - Alternative Input Mechanisms
• - Better Audio

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Approaches to Integration

• Two approaches
• - Extend AG nodes to include DVDW
  functionality
• - Extend DVDW to include AG node
  capability
• Extensions to AG nodes
• - Use the AG virtualized display API (in
  development)
• - Use follow-on APIs for remaining AG
  components
• - Provide multi-panel display
  capabilities
• Panel 1 is the traditional AG
  node video
• Panel 2 is the DVDW
• - The video display node becomes a render
  farm
• - Video display node provides multiple
  image depth (for stereo)
• Active (e.g. shuttered stereo
  glasses)
• Passive (e.g. polarized
  glasses, anaglyph - color pair)

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Approaches to Integration (Continued)

• - Alternate user/presenter input mechanisms
• Motion Tracking
• 6 Degree of Freedom Wand
• - Provide directional and non-directional sound
• True directional sound
• Conversion to non-directional
• Extensions of the DVDW
• - provide Multi-panel display
  capabilities
• Panel 1 is the AG node video
• Panel 2 is the DVDW
• - In addition to the render farm, a node
  is needed for AG video
• - Needs AG node control station
• - Provide for non-directional sound

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Technical Challenges (not a complete list)

• Visual
• - Extend current Win2K video node with render
  farm
• - Handle non-video data streams (e.g. visual
  geometric primitives)
• - Convert visual stereo source imagery to local
  formats
• - Provide bandwidth/compression for dynamic
  visual application (animations, etc.)
• - Provide consistent and easy to use DVDW
  calibration mechanisms
• geometric tile
  alignment
• tile color blending

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Technical Challenges (not a complete list)

• Audio
• - Provide consistent mechanism
  for installing, maintaining,
• and using directional sound
• - Handle data streams for
  directional sound
• User Input
• - Venue modifications to provide
  for presenter/user input
• - Provide consistent mechanism
  for installing, maintaining,
• and using motion tracking and 6
  degree of freedom wand

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Technical Challenges (not a complete list)

• Other
• - Creation of a distributed
  application model (data),
• view (display), controller
  (input)
• - Synchronization of directional
  sound with visual content
• - Use of distributed interactive
  applications

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Development Directions

• Finish local development of DVDW
• Develop DVDWs in a distributed mode
• Integrate using Argonnes API abstractions

13
Conclusions

• This is a serious integration effort
• Transforms the AG node-DVDW from a data stream
  processing system into a distributed applications
  system