Virtual Reality Reaches 100-Million Pixels With NVIDIA Quadro Technology

Virtual Reality Reaches 100-Million Pixels With NVIDIA Quadro Technology

NVIDIA Quadro Professional Graphics Improve Visual Computing for Iowa State University’s New Virtual Reality Applications Center

Iowa State University’s “C6,” the country’s first six-sided virtual reality room, has been redesigned to take cyber battles to new extremes with advanced visual computing. The C6, a 100-million pixel virtual experience engineered by Mechdynes’ Fakespace display division, incorporates NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics processing units (GPUs) in the improved visualization center, which operates at more than 16 times the resolution of a typical immersive room and more than double the resolution of the five-sided, 43-million pixel room also created by Mechdyne.

NVIDIA Quadro GPUs are transforming large-scale graphics at advanced visualization centers throughout the world—the C6 virtual-reality environment at Iowa State University being a spectacular example of how advanced professional graphics technology is playing a key role in research and development across a variety of disciplines.

“Highly realistic graphics are a key component to the incredible realism displayed in the new C6 virtual environment,” said James Oliver, director of Iowa State’s Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC) and professor of mechanical engineering at the university. “NVIDIA Quadro graphics deliver a high-resolution experience that is unmatched. The difference between the old solution and the new 100-million-pixel experience is like putting on your glasses in the morning.”

According to Matt Szymanski, VP and product manager at Mechdyne, “The NVIDIA Quadro product was the perfect fit for the functionality and performance that a system of this magnitude requires. This is not an off-the-shelf display, and we had to work closely with NVIDIA’s engineers to push the technology to the very limits of what could be delivered.”

Iowa State University’s C6 project, which is supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, incorporates a Hewlett-Packard computer cluster featuring 96 NVIDIA Quadro GPUs, 24 Sony digital projectors, an eight-channel audio system and ultrasonic motion tracking technology.

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