Advanced Applications of Virtual Reality

In the first 5 years of virtual reality application research at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), we created numerous software applications for virtual environments. Calit2 has one of the most advanced virtual reality laboratories with the five-walled StarCAVE and the world's first passive stereo, LCD panel-based immersive virtual reality system, the NexCAVE. The combination of cutting edge hardware, direct access to world class researchers on the campus of UCSD, and Calit2's mission to bring the first two together to make new advances at the intersection of these disciplines enabled us to research the future of scientific virtual reality applications. This chapter reports on some of the most notable applications we developed.