One year ago, at the Intel Developer Forum, I spoke about how as computing technology advances and broadband connectivity becomes ubiquitous, today’s nascent virtual worlds and online games will evolve into a “3-D Internet.” I believe that eventually these immersive connected experiences (as we call them) will become a primary mode for human interaction, ranging from simulated worlds used for collaboration, socialization, and entertainment to augmented realities like Google Earth that combine real-world imagery with the user-generated information. I’d like to share some recent progress we’ve made in this area.

Today, during a forward looking overview of next year’s Supercomputing conference, an ACM and IEEE Computer society sponsored event, Wilfred Pinfold (an Intel colleague and general chair of Supercomputing 2009) announced to the Supercomputing 2008 conference attendees plans to create a new virtual world called “ScienceSim.” Supported by Intel and the conference committee, this collaboration aims to use these immersive, connected environments to further cutting edge scientific research.

Primarily, we want to create a new tool that uses the unique features of virtual environments to facilitate education, collaboration, and understanding. The output of many supercomputing applications — from astronomical simulations to medical models — is complex and often highly visual. Creating a persistent, standardized environment where these models can reside will make it easier to share and explore these data sets with other researchers. Also, for educators, ScienceSim will provide an interactive 3-D environment that can be used to explain complex concepts such as gravity [see video below] in a highly intuitive manner.

• Read on at: http://blogs.intel.com/research/2008/11/immersive_science.php
• Submitted by: myrl
• Submitted: 23 Nov 08