Monash University, Tuesday 13th January 2015

CAVE2™ at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, is part of the Monash Immersive Research Platform (MIRP), just one of the university’s research technology platforms. The facility, which was opened in May 2014, is an immersive virtual environment, comprising a circular arrangement of 80 contemporary 3D LCD displays. It allows the exploration of data, in either 2 or 3 dimensions, and enables users to interact with the output from models, simulations and multidimensional images at the atomic level up to the cosmic, and anywhere in between.

Dr David Barnes is the facilities manager, responsible for the running and development of the system. David and his team offer tours and demonstrations of the facility, they are also engaging with industry and research groups to showcase the capabilities of visualisation in a research context. The greatest barrier that the MIRP faces is that researchers do not understand how this technology can be useful to their research.

During the tour of the facility, David demonstrated the capabilities of the technology with some case studies of how the facility has been used by both industry and research and suggested ways in which visualisation could play a role in evaluations of vehicle interiors, display readability and also in subjective assessments of customer quality perception.