News Library
VIRTUAL REALITY 101
Published on July 17, 2001
Author: BEN PETROSKY - News Staff Reporter
© The Buffalo News Inc.
Like something out of a James Bond movie, Eliot Winer places his right index finger on a small illuminated pad next to the door of the New York State Center for Engineering Design and Industrial Innovation. The pad scans Winer's fingerprint and with a clicking sound the door is unlocked. Inside the dimly lit laboratory, a half-dozen students sit at several computer work stations located throughout the room. Two are working on a computer that is connected to a large projection screen that stretches from floor to ceiling and is about 10 feet wide.
On the screen, different colored planets spin by in orbit, rotating around a yellow sun. This virtual solar system is the final project created by two of the students in the University at Buffalo's Summer High School Scientific Visualization and Virtual Reality Workshop offered in conjunction with the state engineering center and UB's Center for Computational Research. David Grabau, 16, and Joe Bauser, 17, will both be seniors in the fall -- Grabau attends Christian Central Academy and Bauser goes to Williamsville South. They're happy with how their model of the solar system has turned out. Looking out from a spaceship, the computer screen looks like some sort of "Star Wars" game. But the scale of the planets as well as their orbits were all calculated mathematically, based on the actual solar system so this is more than just a mock voyage through space. As Bauser changes the onscreen view with the mouse, a visitor asks, "Why can't I shoot anything?" Bauser laughs. "This is an educational project," he says. Indeed, the entire two-week-long workshop was an educational project, says the program director, Eliot Winer. When the program began, "they knew nothing (about virtual reality programming), they didn't even have to know how to use a computer," he says. Grabau, who wants to major in mechanical engineering at UB or Rochester Institute of Technology, said, "I've done very, very basic computer programming before but this brought it to a whole new level and just being given the opportunity to work on millions of dollars of high-end equipment -- you never get this opportunity." After only two weeks of instruction, the 12 students in the workshop learned how to generate basic three-dimensional creations on their computers among which were a pirate ship, complete with working cannons, as well as a virtual town and a dune buggy. Winer says this type of technology is used all over the "real world" for data analysis and 3-D rendering of models as well as virtual reality entertainment. One of the key sponsors, Praxair, an industrial gases company, hopes to foster in these students the interest and skills necessary to perform these operations as part of their careers in the future; their grant allows the students to take this course for free. "These are the kids that in five or 10 years are going to be running things," explains Winer. That's a lot of responsibility, but Bauser says that at least the students are having fun with it. "I'm definitely recommending this to all of my friends." Check out the student projects on the Web at www.nyscedii.buffalo.edu. For information about upcoming workshops at UB, call Eliot Winer at 645-2685.At top is a virtual pirate ship created by Chris Bowley
and Brian Goldstein. The three photos in the center are from Joe
Salazar and Sam Lojacono's virtual town. At the bottom is a virtual
computer by Jake Gadikian and Justin Schaber.
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