Immersive Visualization / IQ-Station Wiki
This site hosts information on virtual reality systems that are geared toward scientific visualization, and as such often toward VR on Linux-based systems. Thus, pages here cover various software (and sometimes hardware) technologies that enable virtual reality operation on Linux.
The original IQ-station effort was to create low-cost (for the time) VR systems making use of 3DTV displays to produce CAVE/Fishtank-style VR displays. That effort pre-dated the rise of the consumer HMD VR systems, however, the realm of midrange-cost large-fishtank systems is still important, and has transitioned from 3DTV-based systems to short-throw projectors.
Main Page
Welcome to the IQ-Station Wiki for commodity-based low-cost VR
This site is a place where the community of users of midrange-cost
virtual reality displays can congregate and share information.
In the past, our focus was on systems primarily constructed from
Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components for a quality VR experience
around the $10,000 to $15,000 price range. But that was during the
era of COTS 3D-TVs, and before COTS HMDs.
Now however, the era of 3D-TVs has waned, but by replacing them with not-terribly-expensive short-throw projectors, and by using super-low-cost tracking from consumer HMD technology, we can still build larger fishtank-style VR displays (IQ-stations) for something reasonable — ~$7,000.
The software discussed here (VR libraries and applications) is often useful for both consumer HMDs, and these midrange-cost IQ-stations, as well as full-sized CAVE VR systems, and thus can be useful for VR pracitioners of the full range of system types and costs. (Though primarily oriented to those interested in immersive visualization — scientific visualization in VR.)
Integration Software
Most IQ-station systems presently in operation run VR applications built on one of two VR integration libraries:
VR Applications
- Toirt Samhlaigh — A 3D volume visualiation tool
- LidarViewer — A point-cloud visualization tool
- CQ3A — A world exploration application (with game-like worlds)
- Immersive ParaView — The general-purpose ParaView sci-vis tool in VR
- VMD — Visual Molecular Dynamics
- ML2VR — Matlab to VR
VR Tools
- VRPN — Virtual Reality Peripheral Network tool for aggregating data from input devices
- ViveLighthouse — Accessing Vive Lighthouse tracking on Linux
- LibSurvive — Building the LibSurvive library for Lighthouse tracking on Linux
- Monado — Open-source OpenXR runtime for Linux
- OpenXR — Building OpenXR on Linux
Visuallization Applications
- BuildingVTK (on MS-Windows)
- BuildingParaView (on MS-Windows)
- BuildingANARI (on Linux)
Other Applications
- Bino — stereoscopic movie player
- XVS — John Stone's stereoscopic image viewer
NIST Portable-VR
- Portable-VR Setup — modern IQ-station w/ short-throw projector
Hardware (old)
The basic components of an IQ-station are:
Community
Part of our community building efforts include bootcamps on Immersive Visualization. Thus far, we have hosted three successful events:
- Bootcamp in Indianapolis held March 25-27, 2013
- Bootcamp in Laramie held June 12-14, 2013
- Bootcamp in Little Rock held October 22-24, 2014
- Bootcamp in Idaho Falls held October 20-21, 2016
Related Publications
- [Sherman 2010] IQ-Station: A Low Cost Portable Immersive Environment
- [Sherman 2013] Immersive Visualization Bootcamps: sharing expertise, building community