Yale Gets Immersive with Scalable Display Technologies

The BEEM Lab at Yale University.
(Image credit: Scalable Display Technologies)

Situated in New Haven, CT, the Ivy League's Yale University is the third-oldest higher education institution in the United States, established in 1701. The university provides a diverse array of undergraduate and graduate programs spanning various disciplines. Yale University’s Built Environment Ecosystem Measurements (BEEM) Lab, for example, represents an innovative and interactive visual laboratory for immersive experiential research and collaborative design. Featuring 360-degree immersive visualization achieved through 15 projectors, WorldViz harnessed Scalable Display Technologies for the automatic warping and blending of multiple projectors, resulting in a seamless 360-degree projection.

The BEEM Lab is a resource for students, faculty, and staff to explore collaborative experiences encompassing a range of immersive technologies, such as augmented, virtual and extended reality tools. This space is a black box environment intentionally designed to be re-configurable, offering support for developing and demonstrating projects that leverage these cutting-edge technologies. As a result, students, faculty and researchers can engage in hands-on, immersive experiences that leverage advanced technologies and interactive tools. The focus is on creating a multi-sensory environment that allows for in-depth exploration and analysis of various phenomena, whether they be related to technology, design, psychology or other fields.

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WorldViz, which specializes in interactive 3D visualization and simulation solutions, was selected to design and integrate the BEEM Lab. Its utilization of Scalable’s advanced software facilitates the automatic warping and blending of multiple projectors, intricately coordinated to deliver a seamless 360-degree projection.

“Designing, building and delivering Yale’s BEEM Lab together with our long-time partner Scalable Display Technologies in less than two months was a great experience,” noted Peter Schlueer, president for WorldViz. “As a VR solutions provider to hundreds of universities, we are proud that Yale University entrusted us with this huge project. Our simple VR content creation pipeline for the BEEM Lab is based on WorldViz’s Vizard VR toolkit, enabling the BEEM team to easily author and display presentations and experiences in this unique multimodal immersive system.”

By leveraging Scalable’s software, the BEEM Lab’s 360-display transforms an ordinary surface into a dynamic and interactive display, allowing for captivating presentations, visualizations and storytelling. By aligning and blending projected images onto the entire surface, Scalable’s projection mapping software enhances the viewer's perception and engagement, creating a seamless and immersive visual environment. 

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