3D Virtual Reality Environment Developed at UC San Diego Helps Scientists Innovate

"When you're inside the StarCAVE the quality of the image is stunning," said Thomas A. DeFanti, director of visualization at Calit2 and one of the pioneers of VR systems. "The StarCAVE supports 20/40 vision and the images are very high contrast, thanks to the room's unique shape and special screens that allow viewers to use 3D polarizing glasses. You can fly over a strand of DNA and look in front, behind and below you, or navigate through the superstructure of a building to detect where damage from an earthquake may have occurred."

[. . .]

The room operates at a combined resolution of over 68 million pixels -- 34 million per eye -- distributed over 15 rear-projected walls and two floor screens. Each side of the pentagon-shaped room has three stacked screens, with the bottom and top screens titled inward by 15 degrees to increase the feeling of immersion (while also reducing the ghosting, or 'seeing double', that bedevils VR systems).

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

And just think of the, er, "recreational" applications!