EVL currently has six full-time faculty/staff and 55 graduate students. EVL faculty and staff members include DeFanti, Sandin, Brown, Gary Lindahl, Dana Plepys, and Maggie Rawlings.
Early contributions to computer graphics included performances with real-time graphics accompanied by music and the use of its hardware and software for creating the computer animation of the Death Star "schematic" for the first Star Wars. In 1976, based on an idea by colleague Rich Sayre, DeFanti and Sandin developed an inexpensive, lightweight glove to monitor hand movements; the Sayre Glove provided an effective method for multidimensional control, such as mimicking a set of sliders. Projects in the 1970s through mid-1980s centered on video game technology, real-time computer animation on microcomputers, and interactive multimedia installations.
"In the late 1980s, the lab began focusing on scientific visualization, developing and providing tools and techniques for research scientists and engineers," Brown says. "Continuing these efforts, EVL is now applying virtual environments to scientific computing."
Back to A virtual environments toolset
Forward to the CAVE