Virtalis has just completed the design and installation of a Virtual Reality (VR) suite for the new Zuckerman Institute for Connective Environmental Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Dr. Andrew Lovett, a senior lecturer in UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences, explained: “As much of our work analyses how people can improve environmental decision making, both singly and in groups, we had already used visualisation tools and therefore had firm ideas about what we wanted to achieve.  In order to see how landscapes may be affected by factors such as agri-environmental schemes, climate change and coastal management plans, we knew we would need a large screen that enabled 3D visualization of interactive scenarios in both stereoscopic and monoscopic modes.  We were all very impressed by the technical solution proposed by Virtalis with input from its partner, Visual Simulation Technologies.  It was clear they had really considered our decision making requirements and how they might be addressed.”

The five storey Zuckerman Institute, which is one of the most energy efficient buildings in Europe, houses the VR suite and a PC laboratory for decision-making experiments in its basement.  The facility was opened on 4th September by Charles Clarke, Secretary of State for Education and the launch was attended by over a hundred other scions of the spheres of environmental science and policy making.

The School of Environmental Sciences holds the highest 5* grade in the Research Assessment exercise, denoting international excellence, and the highest government grading of Excellent for its teaching.  When it was established in 1967, Lord Zuckerman, the first UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser, described the School as researching “something absolutely new and fresh in science”.  The new building will allow natural scientists, social scientists, geographers, economists and other related disciplines to be brought together, under one roof, to work together to understand the way in which environmental and human systems interact with each other.  In this way, the School intends to remain at the forefront of the development of Earth System Science, which is striving to understand the co-functioning of environmental and human societies.

Andrew Connell, Virtalis technical director said: “Drawing on our new StereoWorks technology, we have created a three projector system, with a 125o curved screen.  Environmental 3D content draws on GIS data and satellite imagery as source data from which a database is created using TerraVista.  This is subsequently rendered in real-time by Quantum3D’s PC image generator, Independence II.

All aspects of the display, including the lighting and sound, are fully integrated and controlled by a simple, hand held touch screen for maximum useability.  The system will also enable groups to vote using keypads, with the screen providing instantaneous feedback.”

The new VR facility will be put to work straight away on two research projects.  The first of these is analysing coastal futures in East Anglia, while the second, ““Water4All” is looking into how land use change affects nitrate levels in groundwater.