Collaborative scientific visualization in networked immersive virtual environment

A collaborative scientific visualization environment was constructed by connecting the CABIN immersive multi-screen display system to several immersive projection displays and to supercomputers via a broadband network. In this environment, users in remote places are able to discuss the displayed phenomena while looking at the same data. In particular, a video avatar method was developed to realize natural communication in a shared virtual world. This method was applied to the visualization of several kinds of scientific data, and its effectiveness was evaluated.