Gabe Baker and Daniel Tinkham
We are proud to announce a multi-year partnership with the GSU Creative Media Industries Institute(CMII). WorldViz is providing a major series of integrated VR hardware and software solutions to the CMII VR facilities in Woodruff Park, a prominent business and entertainment hub of Atlanta. The partnership will usher in a new era of immersive technology for the university and city, accelerating workforce development, research, and creative efforts while positioning GSU to be a leader in the emerging VR/AR/MR space.
As one of the largest research and job creation engines in the state, GSU chose to partner with WorldViz because we have deep expertise with immersive technology, as well as a rich history of building hardware and software solutions for both academic institutions and Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries and around the world. Not only will the CMII facility teach their students to become the next generation of tech-savvy creators, it will also give the wider professional and creative communities of the Atlanta area unprecedented access to cutting edge technology, including the advanced VR systems provided by WorldViz.
The WorldViz installation stretches across three distinct spaces on the first floor of the Creative Media Industries Institute – the Production Studio, AR/VR CAVE, and AR/VR Demo Lab. The Production Studio is a wide-area motion capture stage designed for cutting edge virtual production for movies, TV shows, video games and more. The space is equipped with a 44 ft long WorldViz Projection VR system, as well as four collaborative backpack-based HMD systems.
The entire Production Studio space transforms into an explorable virtual environment through WorldViz’s high precision, research-grade, wide-area VR motion tracking technology, PPT which allows the 4 backpack-based users to freely roam in a large-scale VR environment. On the software side, WorldViz stays true to its legacy of software agnosticism by giving VR creatives at the CMII the ability to choose between a number of industry-leading development engines such as WorldViz’s Vizard, Unity 3D, and the Unreal Engine to allow maximum flexibility when bringing their worlds to life across the entire installation.
The AR/VR CAVE environment is housed in a neighboring room and serves as a multi-purpose space designed for the immersive exploration of mixed reality media. We’ve mapped out a gorgeous 3-sided Projection VR display with 6 projectors forming a continuous stereoscopic 3D environment for over 60 feet. The installation is rounded out with a surround sound system, backpack-based and standalone HMD systems, and a high-precision tracking system. This room will allow groups of students and professionals to experience shared immersion with up to 20 audience members experiencing simulations, virtual art shows and more. The final installation space is the VR/AR Demo Lab, which features more lightweight consumer systems for student and visitor use.
Tying all of the CMII VR facilities together – and linking it to the world at large – is WorldViz’s new Vizible software. Vizible is a VR creation and collaboration tool that lets multiple users from anywhere in the world collaborate and communicate inside of immersive experiences. In addition to its built-in collaboration features, Vizible requires no programming to create fully interactive VR experiences which can then be shared around the world, enabling a wide user base of students, artists and professionals to create compelling VR content with little or no technical background. Vizible empowers CMII to conduct collaborative business meetings for creative design review, planning and production, to provide distance training or education, and to hold immersive global events.
We’re thrilled to be partnering with GSU on this endeavor and that our technology will be playing a central role in making Atlanta a true hub for VR creation. For us, it continues to validate the flexibility of our systems but also our open and collaborative approach to doing these kinds of major installations. We believe that immersive content creators should have the freedom to choose how to approach their projects, and have a broad range of tools available to them, including but not limited to WorldViz software.
We’ll be providing more updates about this exciting collaboration between WorldViz and GSU as the installation progresses!
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WorldViz works closely with organizations to craft comprehensive installations tailored to their needs, be it research, training, showcasing, game development, or all of the above. We also create a range of out-of-the-box software, like Vizard and Vizible, aimed at helping researchers, teachers, and creators use virtual reality. If you’re interested in starting a conversation, reach out to us.
