The NVIDIA Quadro® FX 3000G by PNY Technologies makes CAVE™ technology more affordable
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"We envision many more universities using the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000G by PNY Technologies graphics boards to build affordable visualization systems."
Ron Kriz, Associate Professor, Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, and Director of University Visualization and Animation Group (UVAG), and system architects: Andrew Ray and Pat Shinpaugh, UVAG, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
The CAVE™ (CAVE Automated Virtual Environment) system is the most advanced and powerful projection Virtual Reality system on the market. It is configured as a room-sized, cube-shaped facility with stereoscopic graphics projected onto every surface so the images completely surround the users. Normally a CAVE system costs in excess of $1million, but Virginia Tech has designed a system using the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000G by PNY Technologies that will cost significantly less.
 According to Ron Kriz, UVAG Director, "Soon we will no longer support our old SGI Onyx computer with three IR-graphics pipes and will be totally dependent on the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000G by PNY Technologies graphics boards to drive our CAVE system." UVAG has developed a Linux CAVE system that uses four Dell computers with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000G by PNY, quad buffered genlock-enabled graphics boards to drive the four CAVE wall projectors. The CAVE is primarily a graphical system with extremely demanding requirements for its graphics hardware. The NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000G by PNY Technologies graphics board was selected by UVAG because of its graphics performance and built in framelock and genlock capabilities that enable UVAG to power the CAVE in full stereo.
"We looked at Wildcat® cards and the ATI FireGL™ cards. One problem with both of these cards is driver support in Linux. Due to the fact that we operate in a pure UNIX® environment these cards are not desirable due to past experience with driver support," states Kriz.
The CAVE system offers researchers the advantage of immediate, first-hand experience of real-time visual simulation. The CAVE system enables groups involved in manufacturing, telecommunications, engineering, sciences, entertainment and education to perceive spatial and visual data in an immersive environment. These systems create highly realistic and sophisticated interactive simulation environments, ideal for understanding spatial dynamics and interrelationships among objects, people and places.
"With our working DIVERSE Adaptable Display Systems (DADS) published as part of our opensource (http://diverse.sourceforge.net/) philosophy, I envision many more universities using the NVIDIA Quadro® FX 3000G by PNY Technologies graphics boards to build affordable visualization systems. Using DSOs (dynamic shared objects or plugins) and daemons (background processes) in conjunction with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000G by PNY Technologies graphics hardware, which is capable of framelock and swap sync, we were able to implement a highly efficient and low cost system to drive the CAVE walls with full synchronization," Kriz continued.
For more information about VT-CAVE™ systems: www.cave.vt.edu
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About PNY Technologies, Inc.
Established in 1985, PNY Technologies, Inc. is a leading manufacturer and supplier of its Verto®-brand consumer graphics cards and NVIDIA Quadro® by PNY professional graphics boards. The company also offers a full line of high-end memory upgrade modules, flash memory, flash peripherals, USB drives and digital entertainment products. Its memory products currently account for a majority share of all retail sales in the U.S. Headquartered in Parsippany, N.J., PNY maintains facilities in North America (Santa Clara, Calif. and Parsippany, N.J.), Europe (France, United Kingdom, Germany) and Asia (Taiwan). For additional information, please visit the company's Web site at http://www.pny.com.
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The PNY logo is a registered trademark of PNY Technologies, Inc. All registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
CAVE™ is a trademark of the University of Illinois. Images courtesy of UVAG
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