The early years of Immersive Visualization in the Geosciences

Many years ago I was so immersed in the tools and technology of visualization for the geosciences that I decided to make a career out of it. At that time, I was still with Landmark Graphics and had already become one of the technical gurus who knew how to configure and deliver a high end visualization environment. In the early years, it required a client who understood the vision and who also had the money.

The early years of visualization were dominated by two vendors. SGI was so far ahead in the compute environment to deliver the hardware that could drive a huge curved screen that there was not even a distant second. The display environment was, in the early years, dominated by Panoram Technologies. When merged together they could deliver an excellent large format visualization environment including 3D stereo as it was referred to early on. 

One of the key learnings from my years on the scene was what it took for the combination of people, process, hardware, software and data to make the whole effort worthwhile. What it did was change people’s work habits because the room in which this took place was about the team, not the individual. And as important was that the applications being used in the room were the same applications being used at the desktop. This meant that there was no transition from desktop to visualization room. 

Committing to the creation of a visualization room was therefore both a commitment of money and of organizational change. It could not become another desktop for the guy who knew how to drive. It was a place of team collaboration. 

The SGI Onyx was the cornerstone of the compute environment. And it was not a deskside system but a full 7 foot tall rack that housed the fabled graphics cards that made SGI famous. A fully equipped SGI Onyx was north of 300,000 dollars. Each graphics card pipe was set to drive one of 3 projectors.

The projectors were originally CRT based. The max resolution of each was 1280x1024 pixels. Not exactly something to write home about today but for then it was amazing. To support stereo required a 1024x768 display format so the configuration needed to be changed quickly depending on the teams needs. Of equal importance was the system that would allow the projector images to be overlapped to fill up the front screen. And in those days the brightness was controlled through the CRT projectors so that, when properly configured, there was no visual seam to distract the displayed images.

The backroom that supported this activity was amazing. The installation included image blenders, video switching systems, AMX control systems, lots of cabling and a full sound system for use in the room. 

I had the good fortune to be the guru who represented BP in its worldwide effort to deploy these high end visualization environments. I traveled to some pretty exotic places in those days all over Europe, North America and South America and to Indonesia. And I met a lot of really good people.

Each site took some pretty amazing preparation to get ready. In addition to finding a room that could house the display system, the server room and the pilots desk the room itself had to be soundproofed so that rooms next to it would not be affected. One of the most perplexing aspects of an installation was running the keyboard and mouse cables to a desk outside the server room. The keyboard and mice cables out of the box were not designed for much more that 25’ which we always exceeded…so special cables had to be ordered and connected. 

The room also needed some heavy-duty AC delivered to it to keep the server and the projectors from heating the place up too much. The server room required 208v power for the Onyx and 110 for everything else. And a really good ground to keep image noise out of the system. By the time the room was ready it was quite possible to have spent over a million dollars equipping it. And each room needed a pilot who was dedicated to driving the environment so the team could most effectively use the room.

Then along came digital projectors and the world changed again.