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The Holodeck is Real

Posted by: Tim Halbur

28 January 2010 - 2:00pm

Duke's Pratt School of Engineering has created a theater with projections on all four walls plus the ceiling and floor to create an immersive experience not unlike Star Trek's "holodeck" for architects to show clients their work before it is built.

Virtual reality theaters have not yet caught on among designers and architects, but as more companies experiment with the technology it may gain traction. Duke calls theirs "The Dive," or Duke immersive virtual environment.

David Bracken writes, "Climbing a 50-story tower in the Dive is real enough to cause a queasy stomach. The technology allows a user to experience an architectural model from any viewpoint; thus [Mushtaqur Rahman, of Parsons Brinkerhoff] could see how the puppetry center in Atlanta would look to drivers passing by on Interstate 75.

Rahman said facilities like the Dive could be helpful on controversial projects in which a number of different stakeholders are concerned about a design.'

Full Story: Virtual looks and feels almost real
Source: News Observer, January 28, 2010
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All of that only scratches the surface of what's wrong with this study. The idea that complex urban development patterns and human behavior can be meaningfully studied according to one primary criteria — density — is wrong from the start.
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