Challenges

Art in Virtual Reality

In addition to creating and enhancing scientific imagery, Aoki and Brody both actively create their own artwork. Aoki is an experienced computer animator, while Brody is a well-known painter. In addition to these mediums, the artists take advantage of ARSC’s virtual reality resources to push the limits of their art.

Each summer Brody travels to the Alaska wilderness to paint. During recent trips, Brody has taken panoramic photographs of these places. With the help of ARSC/computer science joint faculty appointee Glenn Chappell, Brody mapped those pictures inside a virtual world. Users can now explore the Ruth Glacier near Mt. McKinley, and move into virtual “buildings” that contain entirely different panoramic landscapes. Overall, the virtual “world” holds four panoramas. Brody plans to add additional scenes and more interactivity to the program in the future. In the meantime, visitors to ARSC’s Discovery Lab can “virtually” visit some of Alaska’s most remote and scenic locations, thus opening up new opportunities for people who cannot otherwise experience these places.

Working in Aoki’s visual art gallery in ARSC’s Discovery Lab, the viewer can use a virtual wand to move and interact with the art work.

“ My art is about being in a particular place or situation,” says Brody. “When my paintings work well, it seems as if you can walk right in, so virtual reality is a natural extension to my work in oil paint on canvas.”

Interacting With a Virtual World

Aoki has a different approach to art in the Discovery Lab. In recent work, she has focused on creating interactivity so that viewers can touch and move the art pieces.

“ I want people to be able to do things you can’t do in the real world or at a real art gallery,” says Aoki.

Imagine wandering through virtual rooms and finding a giant pea pod growing out of the floor. Using your wand, you can rearrange the peas within their pods. On each of the peas you find a clock. A house and turning gears can also be found as you explore the virtual world.

Aoki describes, “You can go through walls of gallery rooms. In one place there is a plant. If you pull the plant out of the floor, it’s a fish. These are the kinds of unreal things I want people to experience.”

It’s just this kind of “unreality” that encourages virtual reality developers to explore more and push the limits of current technology and human perception.

In addition to her three-dimensional animation, Aoki joined forces with UAF Percussion Professor Scott Deal. Aoki created an animation that is set to Deal’s music. As the viewer hears the gentle noises of the xylophone, he or she sees a scene progress over the screen and grow. As the music changes, so does the animation. Deal and Aoki are currently starting work to create an animation that will follow the music in a live performance.

Students Get Hands-On Experience

Chris Gonzalez, ARSC student assistant, shows the virtual tour of the ARSC supercomputer machine room he created for the ARSC Discovery Lab.

In addition to creative and scientific work, Aoki and Brody support students who are learning about virtual reality programming and computer art at ARSC. During summer 2003, Aoki assisted ARSC student assistant Chris Gonzalez in creating a virtual tour of the ARSC machine room. The tour is currently used in the Discovery Lab so that visitors can virtually tour the center as well as the lab, despite their locations being at opposite ends of the campus. Immediately following Gonzalez’s completion of the project, his skills were in demand by other university departments, including UAF’s new Center for Nanotechnology.

Brody assisted ARSC summer intern Naeemah Lane with learning how to model and create three-dimensional prints of computer-generated objects. Lane was working at ARSC as part of the National Science Foundation- funded Alaska Research Summer Challenge intern program. Her project involved learning how to use the Thermojet™ Solid Object Printer and creating a users’ guide that could be used by staff, faculty and students who wish to use this ARSC resource. Brody first taught Lane the basics of computer animation and the software that must be used with the printer. Once she had these skills, Lane was able to begin creating test prints on the printer.

“ ARSC’s ability to support these kinds of artistic endeavors really complements the center’s scientific visualization projects,” says director Frank Williams. “Creative expression can strengthen and facilitate scientific discovery, and those discoveries are really what ARSC is about.”
For more information about scientific visualization projects currently in progress at ARSC visit www.arsc.edu.