Virtual Reality Design for Science 2017 (CSCI1370)
Undergraduate course, Teaching Assistant, Brown University, Computer Science Department, 2017
This course explores the visual and human-computer interaction design process for scientific applications in immersive virtual reality. It is cross listed at Brown (as CSCI1370) and RISD (as ILLUS3340) and is co-taught by David Laidlaw from Brown Computer Science, Fritz Drury from RISD Illustration, as well as Stephen Gatesy and Morgan Turner from Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Johannes Novotny is the TA.
Computer science students learn how to work effectively with each other as well as with artists and designers in creating applications targeting Brown’s Caves. A Cave is an immersive virtual reality space whose floor and walls are covered with displays, which we will use to create interactive 3D virtual environments. There are currently two Caves on campus that are managed by the Brown Center for Computation and Visualization (CCV): the YURT, a curved display system with 360-degree field of view located at 180 George St., and it’s predecessor an 8’x8’x8’ cube display system located at Studio 4 of the Granoff Center.
Artists and designers learn to interact with scientists in designing and realizing applications in this new medium. We study the process of design from several perspectives; learn about some specific scientific problems; study existing applications of scientific visualization and virtual reality; explore the medium of the YURT; create designs for the scientific applications; critique, evaluate, realize, and iterate the designs; and culminate with a demonstration of final projects.