Research in the AlloSphere
The AlloSphere Provides a Collaborative Research Environment
The AlloSphere Research Facility consists of a number of digital media laboratories and the 3-story high AlloSphere - a spherical space in which full immersive, interactive, stereoscopic/pluriphonic, virtual environments can be experienced. For more information about the associated media laboratories, refer to the link Facilities.
The AlloSphere from the first floor.
Unlike the virtual reality "cubes" of the 1990s, the AlloSphere accommodates 20-30 people, not just one person, so the promise of a communal experience in the spheres of art, science, entertainment and education is achieved.
The AlloSphere is physically located in the recently completed California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). CNSI and AlloSphere researchers regularly collaborate to showcase important nanoscale research findings in the AlloSphere.
In proximity to the AlloSphere are our associated research laboratories, run by other Media Arts and Technology professors: Four Eyes Lab, Vision Research Lab, Networking and Multimedia Systems Lab, George Legrady Studio, TransLab, ViVoNets Lab, Professional Artists Lab, and the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE).
UCSB also has numerous other research units that may be of interest. For a complete listing, visit the Research Centers and Units page of the UCSB website.
The AlloSphere Supports Diverse Research Applications
For convenience, we divide the AlloSphere's research applications into two broad categories: activities that use the instrument as a research framework for immersive, multimodal environments ("inherent" research) and activities that use the AlloSphere as a functional tool for scientific exploration ("functional" research).
Application areas to pursue in the AlloSphere are diverse. Representative options include:
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Arts and Entertainment
Audiovisual Technologies
Clean "Green" Technology
Computer and Networking
Education
Geography/Remote Sensing
Homeland Security/Defense
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Human Perception/Behavior/Cognition
Industry or Retail Business
Materials Science
Medical
Nanotechnology
Physics
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AlloSphere Research Groups
There are a number of existing AlloSphere research groups: neurobiological, new materials, fluid dynamics and turbulence, HCI, HPC, Panoramic high definition video, 3D audio, Panoram and 3D visual, geo data, and others. New groups are regularly forming. Please contact us if you have an idea for a focus area.
AlloSphere Research Demonstrations
The AlloSphere has selected a few research efforts (described below) that are illustrative of work being conducted at both the atomic and macroscopic levels as research demonstrations. The best way to view these demos is, of course, inside the AlloSphere in 3D.
1. Artistic Patterning and Structural Growth New Atomic Bonding: Multi-Center Hydrogen Bond. An Interactive Visualization and Multi-modal Representation of Unique Atomic Bonds for Alternative Fuel Sources
In this multi-center hydrogen bond demo, the source of conductivity is zinc. Hydrogen replaces oxygen and forms a highly unusual multi-center bond. Simulations will allow for calculations at a higher level of complexity, leading to the investigation of how bonding strength changes as hydrogen is gradually drawn out of a hydride compound. This is a technique for using hydrogen as an alternative energy source, functioning as it would in a real world hydrogen car. The research is focusing on substances that hold hydrogen like a sponge, with the hydrogen atoms bonded weakly to the crystal structure of the host material so that they can be released with a small amount of heat. Visualizations and interactive simulations are leading to new discoveries on how these materials bond and can be released.
The work is an artistic as well as scientific representation that was created as an interactive artistic multi-modal installation in which one flies through the 2000 atom lattice navigating by the sonification of the atomic emission spectra of oxygen and zinc. The unique hydrogen bond has its own "musical voice". All sonic information comes from precise mathematical calculations transposing the atomic emission spectra into the audio domain.
Key faculty, postdoctoral, and graduate student researchers associated with the project: Professor Chris Van de Walle, Dr. Anderson Janotti, Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Lance Putnam, Basak Alper.
A video of this project is located on the Media page.
2. Multimodal Representation of Quantum Mechanics: The Hydrogen Atom
As the sciences increasingly rely on mathematical constructs to describe the invisible processes of nature, it is important to remain cognizant of the effectiveness of empirical observation towards gaining new insights. Digital systems provide not only a means of simulating models, but also a medium for communicating through image and sound.
This work interactively visualizes and sonifies the wavefunction of an electron of a single hydrogen atom. The atomic orbitals are modeled as solutions to the time-dependent Schrödinger equation with a spherically symmetric potential given by Coulomb's law of electrostatic force. Different orbitals of the electron can be combined in superposition to observe dynamic behaviors such as photon emission and absorption.
The interactive component of the simulation allows one to fly through the atom with a probe that emits "stream particles" that follow along the largest changes in the probability current and gradient of the electron. The electron probability amplitude is sonified by scanning through groups of stream particles in the space. The pitch can be adjusted by the rate at which a particular set of stream particles is scanned across. This allows us to give the sonification procedure a certain type of musicality, by assigning specific pitches to different features in the wavefunction.
This investigation is just the beginning of an effort to multimodally represent mathematical models used in physical and theoretical sciences. By finding a common meeting ground, artists and scientists can share insights and pursue similar fundamental questions about symmetry, pattern formation, and emergence.
Key faculty and graduate student researchers associated with the project: Professor JoAnn-Kuchera Morin, Professor Luca Peliti, Lance Putnam.
3. Nano-Scaled Devices
In this project, we are developing an interactive software simulation of nano-scaled devices and structures, with atom-level visualization of those structures implemented on the 30 foot diameter, 360-degree projection dome of the AlloSphere. When completed, this will allow the user wearing 3D stereoscopic glasses to stand in the middle of a simulation of a nano-scaled device and interact with the atoms and physical variables of that device, using novel and intuitive user interfaces. It will be the world's first fully immersive nanostructured matter simulator.
We shall implement computational materials science algorithms such as molecular dynamics and density functional theory on a novel hardware accelerator that transforms a single PC workstation into a 4 Teraflop supercomputer. This allows us to run nanoscale simulations that are 2-3 orders of magnitude, or 100x -1000x faster than current implementations. Complex calculations of the physics for nano-structured devices that previously took days will take minutes. We will also be able to use this extra computational power to solve for the physical properties of much larger structures and devices than were previously possible, allowing nano-engineers to design and simulate devices composed of millions of atoms.
Key faculty, postdoctoral, and graduate student researchers associated with the project: Professor Tobias Hollerer, Brent Oster, Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin.
4. Generating Audible Tones from Coherent Electron Spin Precession in a Quantum Dot
An audio synthesis model of electronic measurements on a quantum dot is the subject of yet another research group. Quantum dots, sometimes called artificial atoms, have utility for making new sources of clean energy. The model is a literal interpretation of electron spin precession experiments presented in the publication referenced below. The mathematical model of the experiment was mapped directly using wavelength as the basis for transposing optical frequencies into the audio domain. The frequency of electron spin precession is transposed from gigahertz to the audible range and is thereby auralized for a 3 dimensional acoustic environment. Visualizations may be derived directly and literally from the audio output and may be represented with animations of the bloch-sphere diagram or intuitive graphical renderings. The model is intended to be incorporated as a functional component into higher musical, compositional and generative systems and for that reason, is constructed with an open architecture. Conceptually, this project follows in the evolution of sound generation from earlier developments in musical instrumentation by the application of electronic pickup on acoustic instruments to analog signal generation and digital synthesis, now to map the resonant qualities of a quantum structure.
The physical experiment from which the model is derived is a pump probe measurement of coherent electron spin in a quantum dot. The sinusoidal precession of the superposition of quantum spin states is established by the laser pump pulse incident on a quantum dot device. The phase is arbitrarily perturbed by the application of a tipping pulse that interacts with the spin precession through the Stark Tipping effect. The measurement establishes the feasibility of a quantum spin computing device by the setting, and subsequent readout of a single coherent quantum spin state at a rate sufficient for multiple read/write interactions within the time envelope of the coherent event. In the audible model, the wave-shaping effect of the coherent interaction of the tipping laser pulse is used to synthesize a sound grain when the frequency of spin precession is modeled to be within the audible range. Individual grains from the audio model are used to construct a continuous audible waveform through the process of granular synthesis.
Future work should focus on developing an audio model for entanglement between q-bits. Intermodulations between q-bits may result in novel synthetic audio processes in a 3D environment and moreover, may provide some intuitive insight into quantum interactions. As our contemporary technology now taps the quantum level of physical phenomena, this implementation may serve to realize new musical potential.
Reference:
Ultrafast Coherent Optical Manipulation of a Single Electron Spin in a Quantum Dot.
J. Berezovsky, M. H. Mikkelsen, N. G. Stoltz, L. A. Coldren, D. D. Awschalom.
Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106.
Key faculty, postdoctoral, and graduate student researchers associated with the project: Professor David Awschalom, Dennis Adderton, Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, and Lance Putnam.
5. Geospatial Inquiry/Google Earth
Starting in May 2008, a cooperative team from the UCSB Center for Spatial Studies and Media Arts and Technology began creating several geospatial prototypes for the AlloSphere. The base examples serve as the foundation for research on 3D, collaborative spatial inquiry, and include an immersive implementation of Google Earth virtual globe software, a high-resolution terrain map of the University of California-Santa Barbara, and an interactive model of the external façes and internal geometry of UCSB's Phelps Hall. The Google Earth implementation allows multiple-scale exploration of overhead imagery, terrain, urban buildings, annotated physical and political features, and internet-based user-generated content. The University of California terrain and building datasets run within ESRI ArcGIS, a widely used Geographic Information Systems software, and can be queried against the software's large set of spatial analysis operations.
While geographic analysis is typically performed on a personal computing workstation, the AlloSphere is designed as a shared, large scale, multiuser collaborative space. The difference provides numerous research opportunities on group user interfaces and how to transact collaborative geographic inquiries. The immersive 3D vantage also is significantly different from a 2D view with respect to spatial cognition, and likely will require reexamination of associated cartographic practices, particularly in the representation of nonphysical , conceptual entities. For example, within the 3D, first person environment, abstract entities not only must have a location, but also a behavior (for example, dynamic appearance as perspective changes).
The spatial examples within the AlloSphere offer platforms for investigating the first-person digital geospace, its user interfaces, queries, visual and aural representations, and collaboration mechanisms.
Key faculty and graduate student researchers associated with the project: Professor Michael Goodchild, Alan Glennon, Nate Royal, and Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin.
6. Artificial Nature/Biogenerative Art
One may recall experiences from childhood playing in the flow of a river or watching the path of marching insects to produce fascinating natural patterns and provoke deep insights: lucid investigations in an infinite game. We approach this trans-disciplinary subject through an audiovisual evolutionary art installation and multi-agent system entitled "Artificial Nature". The system comprises a complex, dynamic and dissipative virtual world interweaving physico-chemical, biological and symbolic strata, with both visual and spatial sound projection and physical interfaces. Spectators can witness, control and discover generative and abstract spatio-temporal patterns evolving from the behaviors of artificial life agents, exploring beauty and creativity in nature and culture.
Key faculty, postdoctoral and graduate student researchers associated with the project: Haru Ji, Graham Wakefield and Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin.
7. AlloBrain
The AlloBrain reconstructs an interactive 3D model of a human brain from macroscopic, organic fMRI data sets. The current model contains several layers of tissue blood flow, in which 12 "intelligent" agents interactively mine the data set for blood density level, and gather the information to deliver back to the researchers. 3D electrocardiogram data will be superimposed on the model, with the ultimate goal of superimposing computational models of synaptic nerve response, to move toward the nano-scaled organic level in this research project. The simulation contains several generative audio-visual systems. These systems are stereo-optically displayed and controlled by two wireless (Bluetooth) input devices that feature custom electronics, integrating several MEMs sensor technologies. The first controller allows one to navigate the space using 6 degrees of freedom. The second one contains twelve buttons that control the twelve agents. This same controller also moves the ambient sounds spatially around the sphere. Its shape is based on the hyper-dodecahedron, a 4-dimensional geometrical polytope, its shadow projected onto 3 dimensions. It was developed using procedural modeling techniques, and constructed with a 3-D printer capable of building solid objects. Using these controls along with the immersive qualities of the AlloSphere have allowed associated neuroscientists to explain the structure of the brain to varied audiences. This virtual interactive prototype also illustrates some of the key research topics undertaken in the AlloSphere; multimedia/multimodal computing, interactive immersive environments, and scientific data representation through art.
Key faculty, postdoctoral, and graduate student researchers associated with the project: Professor Marcos Novak, Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Dr. Xavier Amatrain, Dr. Dan Overholt, Lance Putnam, Wesley Smith, John Thompson and Graham Wakefield.
A video of this project is located on the Media page.