Christie brings virtual reality to the university

Four Spanish public universities have positioned themselves as authentic poles of innovation in the field of digital content thanks to the installation of advanced virtual reality technology that includes eight Christie Mirage S+3K projectors. For this interesting project, Ingevideo has relied on the power of WorldViz virtual reality software on HP workstations.

Four Spanish public universities have positioned themselves as authentic poles of innovation in the field of digital content thanks to the installation of advanced virtual reality technology that includes eight Christie Mirage S+3K projectors. The project, promoted by the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and the Information Society, through Red.es, and the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE), is part of the Digital Professionals program in which 21 Spanish public universities participate.

Within the Program, Production and Experimentation Centers have been created that allow students and professionals to be trained and initiated in the generation of content such as video games, 2D/3D animation, virtual reality, graphic design or advanced audio and video editing. Its objective is to promote the national digital content industry, promoting the training of students and professionals in the sector and promoting collaboration between universities and companies. The program has a global budget of 8.5 million euros for its development.

Ingevideo, Christie's partner, was the winner of the public tender for the supply of virtual reality and motion capture systems. The rest of the audiovisual equipment, which included production systems, editing, post-production, video game programming, 3D design and animation, storage, distribution and publication of digital content, was supplied by other suppliers and manufacturers.

Four of the twenty-one universities participating in the Program (Alicante, Burgos, Cádiz and Santiago de Compostela) presented projects related to immersive virtual reality. Thus, Ingevideo created stereoscopic projection rooms in these four centers with a system called IL Wall, which constitutes an immersive semi-cave equipped with two Christie Mirage S+3K projectors that project in L on a 3 x 2 meter front screen and on the floor. “This is a unique system in Spain, created by us, which allows walls to be added in the future to create a complete cave,” explains Miguel Motos, director of the Virtual Reality and Simulation area at Ingevideo.

WorldViz sobre HP

The system is completed with WorldViz virtual reality software, which is installed on a workstation HP Z800 with the latest Nvidia Quadro FX5800 technology, and an optical motion capture tracking system. Real D active glasses are used for 3D. The aspect ratio is 4:3, and the sound is 5.1 with network-managed amplifiers. Ingevideo also supplied each of the four universities with 20 WorldViz licenses to train students in creating interactive 3D environments.

These immersive semi-caves are used so that students can experiment with the development of virtual reality applications in the 3D environment, as well as in the modeling and animation of scenarios and characters, and in the capture of body and facial movement. “The idea is to train a good number of students and professionals in the digital content sector, as well as develop collaborations that promote university-business technology transfer,” says José Labrador Serrano, coordinator of the Program at Red.es. With the launch of this Program, it is estimated that collaboration agreements will be established with more than 50 companies in the sector.

The Christie Mirage S+3K projectors chosen are stereoscopic systems with 3 DLP chips, 3,000 lumens and SXGA+ native resolution. “It is a model that is already established in the market and that we had already installed in other caves, and it has always given us excellent results,” says Miguel Motos, from Ingevideo.

Motos has also highlighted the challenge of working in different parts of Spain with only one month to spare: “it was not easy to supply the equipment and integrate all the elements, both hardware and software, in that period of time, but we achieved it with a lot of work and also helped by Christie's good service,” he points out.