Beyond desktop point and click: Immersive walkthrough of aerospace structures

There are a number of 3D applications that have shown the benefits of using visualization techniques for virtual prototyping and education in aerospace engineering. However, these applications typically run only on desktop computers and user interaction is limited to mouse and keyboard. Virtual reality technologies provide a richer set of user experience by combining stereoscopic images with interactive, multi-sensory, and viewer-centered environments. We present an interactive and immersive walk-through application of a space station that can be configured and executed on multiple operating systems and platforms. The hardware setup may vary for each platform. Some may be fully immersive environments with multiple projection screens that surround the user and provide spatial tracking, while others may only provide a single PC equipped with active stereo graphics output. Even a laptop using only monoscopic images is supported. The application has been tested in our omni-directional treadmill system, which includes spatial tracking of the user's head and is run on a graphics cluster which drives three projection screens around the treadmill. This kind of immersion using stereo projection and correctly scaled structures allows for a better sense of spatial relationships, because users receive bio-mechanical feedback during navigation by walking. For computer desktop setups, the software can be configured to run on a single screen and with a game controller for navigation.