DRI's high-tech visualization lab may have business uses

A new lab at the Desert Research Institute can show you a view of Lake Tahoe like none other on a 17-foot screen, in 3-D, from virtually any angle, and empty.

The graphic is one of the more spectacular visuals of the new Advanced Computing in Environmental Sciences VisLab at DRI.Watching the inside of a tornado plays a close second.

The ACES VisLab is a state-of-the-art scientific visualization facility.

It includes a 17- foot back-projection screen, as well as a threedimensional front-projection system.

The room is also home to a collaborative video-conferencing facility with advanced graphics workstations, along with a computer application that allows participants to share data in complex, massive quantities and in real time.And the lab is set up with several cameras to simulate a face-to-face environment.

The ACES lab's capabilities are being used chiefly by students, scientists, and researchers, says Vanda Grubisic, the statewide coordinator for the program and VisLab director.

The ACES VisLab is part of the Nevada National Science Foundation's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research effort to make Nevada scientists more competitive in computer modeling and data visualization.

But Grubisic believes the lab can be useful to high tech business uses as well.

She sees possibilities for biotechnology companies that design hearts, for example.

Their scientists and developers could use the facility to create visualizations of the heart at work.

Any business that uses complex computations to create models, in fact, could use the lab to see their virtual model at work, and to get inside it, says Grubisic.

Other businesses might use the conference capabilities to do high-end sales presentations.

Or they might use the data sharing capabilities along with the video-conferencing to collaborate on data-intensive projects.

The facility is interested in attracting businesses, says Heather Emmons, DRI public information officer, though the proposals the lab has out now are with the National Science Foundation, the Department of the Interior and federal agencies.

She and Grubisic are looking to the business community to make the leap from science to commercial usage.

And that leap may not be as easy to make as it at first appears.

"Companies that have complex modeling needs are a natural fit," says Michael Thomas, director of resource development for the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada.

But which company would that be? Northern Nevada companies will need to study the VisLab individually to find their own unique uses.

Rick Sorensen, IGT manager of public relations, who reviewed the lab's capabilities, called the visual display "cool," but, he said,"it may be out of the realm of IGT's needs." For now.

Meanwhile, back in the VisLab, as the "camera"moves to a 45-degree view of Lake Tahoe, it becomes obvious that Emerald Bay sits way up on the side of a ledge a shallow pool alongside the deep Tahoe basin.

It's a 3-D graphic that whets the appetite for future visual uses,whether they be museum presentations - a possibility, says Grubisic - or educational programs, or business applications.