Carolina Cruz-Neira

Last updated
Carolina Cruz-Neira
Dr. Cruz-Neira.jpg
Alma mater University of Illinois, Chicago
Universidad Metropolitana
Occupation University of Central Florida
Known forComputer Engineering,
CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment
Awards Member of the National Academy of Engineering, IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award 2007

Carolina Cruz-Neira is a Spanish-Venezuelan-American computer engineer, researcher, designer, educator, and a pioneer of virtual reality (VR). She is known for inventing the cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE). She previously worked at Iowa State University (ISU), University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL Lafayette), University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA Little Rock), [1] and she is currently an Agere Chair Professor at University of Central Florida (UCF).

Contents

Education

Cruz-Neira graduated cum laude with a degree in systems engineering from the Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, Venezuela in 1987. [2] She earned a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Illinois, Chicago in 1991, and her PhD in 1995, working under computer graphics researcher Thomas DeFanti. [2]

Work

Cave automatic virtual environment

The first CAVE was invented by Carolina Cruz-Neira, Daniel J. Sandin, and Thomas A. DeFanti in 1992. [3] For her PhD dissertation, Cruz-Neira designed and developed the CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment, its specifications, and implementation. She also designed and implemented the CAVELib software API, now a commercial product. She was the architect of the Open Source API VR Juggler, an open source virtual reality applications development framework. [4] [5] [6]

The CAVE is an immersive system that became the standard for rear projection-based virtual reality systems. The normal full system consists of projections screens along the front, side and floor axes, and a tracking system for the "user". Although they used the recursive acronym Cave Automatic Virtual Environment for the CAVE system, the name also refers to Plato's "Republic" and "The Allegory of the Cave" where he explored the concepts of reality and human perception.

There have been a couple offshoots of the CAVE technology, including ImmersaDesk, Infinity Wall and Oblong Industries' G-speak system.[ citation needed ] The ImmersaDesk is a semi-immersive system, resembling a drafting table, while the Infinity Wall is designed to cater to an entire room of people, such as a conference room. Extending this concept, G-speak supports gestural input from multiple-users and multiple-devices on an expandable array of monitors.[ citation needed ]

Academia

Video of Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira (2016), on how virtual reality will shape the world of tomorrow

Cruz-Neira was the Stanley Chair professor in Interdisciplinary Engineering, and a co-founder of the Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC) at Iowa State University (ISU). [7] [8] In 2002, Dr. Cruz-Neira co-founded and co-directed the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) graduate program at ISU. [7]

She later joined the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2005, and in 2006, was the first CEO and Chief Scientist of LITE (Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise), a Louisiana State initiative to support economic development in immersive technologies. [4] From 2009 to 2014 she was the W. Hansen Hall and Mary Officer Hall/BORSF Endowed Super Chair in Telecommunications in Computer Engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. [9]

In 2014, she was named an Arkansas Research Scholar by the Arkansas Research Alliance and moved to Little Rock to lead the Emerging Analytics Center (EAC) at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. [10]

In 2019, Cruz-Neira joined the University of Central Florida, as an Agere Chair Professor in the Computer Science Department. [11] [12]

Many of her former students are now doing leading work in VR at places such as Unity Labs, Intel, Microsoft Research, Google, DreamWorks, EA, Deere & Company, Boeing, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Argonne National Laboratory. [13]

Other work

In 2017, Cruz-Neira was included in episode 8 "the player", in a ten part, Dutch documentary series, TheMind of the Universe (2017) by Robbert Dijkgraaf and VPRO broadcast. [14]

In January, she was invited by Dell to participate in the “VR for Good” panel at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show to demonstrate how innovators are using virtual reality to make a positive impact on society. [15]

Since June 2019, she has served as Chief Editor of VR and Industry for Frontier's in Virtual Reality Journal.[ citation needed ]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual reality</span> Computer-simulated experience

Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment, education and business. Other distinct types of VR-style technology include augmented reality and mixed reality, sometimes referred to as extended reality or XR, although definitions are currently changing due to the nascence of the industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cave automatic virtual environment</span> Immersive virtual reality environment

A cave automatic virtual environment is an immersive virtual reality environment where projectors are directed to between three and six of the walls of a room-sized cube. The name is also a reference to the allegory of the Cave in Plato's Republic in which a philosopher contemplates perception, reality, and illusion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mixed reality</span> Merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments

Mixed reality (MR) is a term used to describe the merging of a real-world environment and a computer-generated one. Physical and virtual objects may co-exist in mixed reality environments and interact in real time.

The Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC) is a research center within the Engineering Teaching and Research Complex (ETRC) at Iowa State University (ISU) and is involved in advanced research of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), human computer interaction (HCI), visualization, and is home to the world's highest resolution immersive virtual reality facility, known as the C6.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel J. Sandin</span> American artist and researcher

Daniel J. Sandin is an American video and computer graphics artist, designer and researcher. He is a Professor Emeritus of the School of Art & Design at University of Illinois at Chicago, and co-director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is an internationally recognized pioneer in computer graphics, electronic art and visualization.

Thomas Albert "Tom" DeFanti is an American computer graphics researcher and pioneer. His work has ranged from early computer animation, to scientific visualization, virtual reality, and grid computing. He is a distinguished professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a research scientist at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2).

The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) is an interdisciplinary research lab and graduate studies program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, bringing together faculty, students and staff primarily from the Art and Computer Science departments of UIC. The primary areas of research are in computer graphics, visualization, virtual and augmented reality, advanced networking, and media art. Graduates of EVL either earn a Masters or Doctoral degree in Computer Science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immersion (virtual reality)</span> Perception of being physically present in a non-physical world

Immersion into virtual reality (VR) is a perception of being physically present in a non-physical world. The perception is created by surrounding the user of the VR system in images, sound or other stimuli that provide an engrossing total environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Fuchs</span> Computer scientist, professor, and researcher in computer graphics

Henry Fuchs is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Federico Gil Professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). He is also an adjunct professor in biomedical engineering.

A projection augmented model is an element sometimes employed in virtual reality systems. It consists of a physical three-dimensional model onto which a computer image is projected to create a realistic looking object. Importantly, the physical model is the same geometric shape as the object that the PA model depicts.

Ming C. Lin is an American computer scientist and a former chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she also holds an endowed faculty position as the Elizabeth Stevinson Iribe Chair of Computer Science. Prior to moving to Maryland in 2018, Lin was the John R. & Louise S. Parker Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The TreadPort Active Wind Tunnel is a unique immersive virtual environment that integrates locomotion interfaces with sensory cues such as visual, auditory, olfactory, radiant heat and wind display. The TPAWT augments the Sarcos Treadport consisting of the Cave automatic virtual environment(CAVE) with a subsonic wind tunnel built around the user environment, and adds wind to the virtual environment. The Treadport Active Wind Tunnel is one of the first virtual environments to include wind into the sensory experience of the user. Other systems considering wind display, directly use fans.

Extended reality is a catch-all to refer to augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). Sometimes the abbreviation “XR” is used to refer to all of them. The technology is intended to combine or mirror the physical world with a "digital twin world" that is able to interact with each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franz Fischnaller</span>

Franz Fischnaller is a new media artist and transdisciplinary researcher. He is recognized for the creation of his digital, virtual reality and interactive art installations works across the fields of art, technology, humanities and cultural heritage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual reality game</span> Video game played in virtual reality

A virtual reality game or VR games is a video game played on virtual reality (VR) hardware. Most VR games are based on player immersion, typically through head-mounted display unit or headset with stereoscopic displays and one or more controllers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual reality applications</span> Overview of the various applications that make use of virtual reality

Virtual reality applications are applications that make use of virtual reality (VR), an immersive sensory experience that digitally simulates a virtual environment. Applications have been developed in a variety of domains, such as education, architectural and urban design, digital marketing and activism, engineering and robotics, entertainment, virtual communities, fine arts, healthcare and clinical therapies, heritage and archaeology, occupational safety, social science and psychology.

Jessica Brillhart is an American immersive director, writer, and theorist, known for her pioneering techniques in virtual reality filmmaking.

Karen Rafferty is the Head of the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen's University Belfast. She works with virtual and augmented reality for health care and automation.

Colin Ware is a professor at the University of New Hampshire, cross-appointed between the Departments of Computer Science and Ocean Engineering. Ware is the director of the Data Visualization Research Lab in the university's Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping.

Immersive learning is a learning method which students being immersed into a virtual dialogue, the feeling of presence is used as an evidence of getting immersed. The virtual dialogue can be created by two ways, the usage of virtual technics, and the narrative like reading a book. The motivations of using virtual reality (VR) for teaching contain: learning efficiency, time problems, physical inaccessibility, limits due to a dangerous situation and ethical problems.

References

  1. ↑ "The emerging future in Arkansas of "life-size" aircraft visualization in High Definition 3D". www.arkansasedc.com. Arkansas Economic Development Commission. 2014-07-11. Archived from the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  2. 1 2 "Here's More on ARA Scholar Carolina Cruz-Neira of UALR". Innovate Arkansas. Retrieved 2019-09-24.
  3. ↑ Cruz-Neira, Carolina; Sandin, Daniel J.; DeFanti, Thomas A.; Kenyon, Robert V.; Hart, John C. (1992-06-01). "The CAVE: audio visual experience automatic virtual environment". Communications of the ACM. 35 (6): 64–72. doi:10.1145/129888.129892. ISSN   0001-0782. S2CID   19283900.
  4. 1 2 "Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira". ICIQ 2013. Archived from the original on 25 March 2014. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  5. ↑ "Engineer envisions sci-fi as reality". arkansasonline.com. 24 November 2014. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  6. ↑ "Carolina Cruz-Neira Ph.D.: Executive Profile & Biography - Businessweek". Businessweek.com. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  7. 1 2 3 Cruz-Neira, Carolina (2007-03-01). "IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award 2007". 2007 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference. pp. xvii. doi:10.1109/VR.2007.352453. ISBN   978-1-4244-0905-1.
  8. ↑ "Inside Iowa State". archive.inside.iastate.edu. Retrieved 2018-08-28.
  9. ↑ "Presents the Spring 2014 EECS Seminar Series, Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira" (PDF). www.eecs.ucf.edu. 2014. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  10. ↑ "Computer Science Distinguished Lecture: Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira". Iowa State University. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  11. ↑ "Acclaimed Computer Scientist and Virtual Reality Pioneer Joins UCF Faculty". University of Central Florida. 14 February 2020. Retrieved 2022-04-06.
  12. ↑ "Springer named director of UA Little Rock Emerging Analytics Center". University of Arkansas at Little Rock. 30 June 2020. Retrieved 2022-04-06.
  13. ↑ New Media Futures. University of Illinois Press. 2018. p. 85.
  14. ↑ Swart, Rein (17 July 2017). "Allerhande, maar vooral literatuur: The mind of the universe (2017), tiendelige wetenschapsserie van Robbert Dijkgraaf". Allerhande, maar vooral literatuur. Retrieved 2019-09-24.
  15. ↑ "Cruz-Neira named new member of the National Academy of Engineering". News. 2018-02-08. Retrieved 2019-11-19.
  16. ↑ "iDMAa Award Recipients". idmaa.org. 2018. Retrieved 2018-08-28.
  17. ↑ Harper, Jeremy (2018-01-27). "ARA Scholar Carolina Cruz-Neira wows at CES 2018". Arkansas Research Alliance. Retrieved 2019-11-19.
  18. ↑ Crecente, Brian (26 October 2016). "VR's Long, Weird History". Polygon. Retrieved 6 April 2017.
  19. ↑ "Women in STEM: 3 of VR's Greatest Female Innovators". University Herald. 2016-10-27. Retrieved 2018-08-28.
  20. ↑ "National Academy of Engineering Elects 83 Members and 16 Foreign Members". NAE. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
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