About

A Message from Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

AlloSphere - Who we are

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin @ TED

Welcome to the AlloSphere Research Facility, located in California NanoSystems Institue (CNSI) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin: What would it be like?

Intersecting Science, Engineering, and the Arts

What we do?

The AlloSphere is a one-of-a-kind immersive instrument that is the culmination of over 30 years of Distinguished Professor Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin’s creativity and research efforts in media systems and studio design.

It is differentiated from conventional virtual reality environments by

Inside AlloSphere

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin inside the AlloSphere

AlloSphere - What we do

Intersecting Science, Engineering, and the Arts

Compositional Process & Media Systems

Inside the AlloSphere - Demo: Fabric by Dr. Tim Wood

The AlloSphere is a three-story facility where we use multiple modalities to represent large and complex data, including immersive visualization, sonification, and interactivity.

Inside AlloSphere

Inside the AlloSphere - Demo TEMP AP

The AlloSphere Facility

AlloSphere Design

...In representing complex and real-world scenarios on computational platforms, a number of data types come into play, including real data from scientific instruments, simulations on that data, as well as mathematical equations as a result of previous years of experimentation and simulation. Reenacting these complex holistic systems interactively and in real time leads to the possibility of new scientific discoveries as well as new forms of art and entertainment, the interactive cinema of the future and real-world simulations of “nature as it could be,” not nature as it is.

Inside the AlloSphere

The AlloSphere (three stories, 26 projectors, & 54.1 Channels of sound.) is a large-scale instrument created as an environment to deliver rich, coherent, interactive, high-resolution 3D video and audio streams from massive scientific datasets is a complex computational and systems engineering task that continues to involve faculty across a variety of disciplines.

Our facility is differentiated from other virtual reality environments by

History

Motivations

Systems Have Structure

Levels of Detail

In Detail:

Design Team

Dr. Kuchera-Morin led the planning of the AlloSphere instrument from the very first day. During the many years of extensive meetings with the architects and design consultants during the design/construction phases, Kuchera-Morin guided the many required code changes as nothing like this facility had ever been built before.

The AlloSphere design was planned originaly for the 62,000 square foot California NanoSystems Institute building (Elings Hall) at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The initial design teams:

Inside the AlloSphere - Demo: The Earth

Architectural & Instrument Design

The AlloSphere instrument consists of a 3-story cube that is treated with extensive sound absorption material making it one of the largest near-to-anechoic chambers in the world.

Standing inside this chamber is a 5-meter-radius sphere constructed of perforated aluminum that is designed to be optically opaque and acoustically transparent.

High-resolution stereoscopic projectors are mounted unobtrusively below the bridge and above the walkway entrances, approaching eye-limited resolution and covering almost the entire screen surface.

A multichannel loudspeaker system is suspended behind the aluminum screen to provide full-surround 3-D audio driven by real-time sound synthesis and spatialization.

Computation clusters include simulation, sensor-array processing, real-time videoprocessing for motion-capture and visual computing, render-farm/real-time ray-tracing and radiosity cluster, and content and prototyping environments.

Inside the AlloSphere - Demo: Fractal by Dr. Kon Hyon Kim

Immersive Virtual Environment (I.V.E.)

An AlloSphere Precursor

Analog Computing & HCI

The AlloSphere Instrument

AlloSphere Instrument 1 of 3

AlloSphere Instrument 2 of 3

AlloSphere Instrument 3 of 3

The AlloSphere can accommodate dozens of researchers concurrently.

As you and your colleagues stand on the bridge of the AlloSphere, you will be immersed in scientific simulations, data visualizations, and artistic content.

Making Discoveries from the Arts, Mathematics, & Sciences

Contact

Our Team

Inside the AlloSphere - Team inside Quantum Data

Inside the AlloSphere

Image

Visiting the AlloSphere

AlloSphere | Support the Future

Inside the AlloSphere - Team inside Quantum Data

UCSB's Office of Development - AlloSphere

Directions to the AlloSphere @ 2621 Elings Hall