While I was in Santa Barbara recently to install a low-cost VR system, I also took the chance to visit the Allosphere. One of the folks behind the Allosphere is Tobias Höllerer, a computer science professor at UCSB who I’ve known for a number of years; on this visit, I also met JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, the director of the Allosphere Research Facility, and Matthew Wright, the media systems engineer.
Allosphere Hardware
The Allosphere is an audacious design for a VR environment: a sphere ten meters in diameter, completely illuminated by more than a dozen projectors. Visitors stand on a bridge crossing the sphere at the equator, five meters above ground. While I did take my camera, I forgot to take good pictures; Figure 1 is a pretty good impression of what the whole affair looks like.
Figure 1: What the Allosphere kinda looks like. Image taken from the Marvel Movies Wiki.
