CAVE - Definition and Overview

A Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (better known by the recursive acronym CAVE) is an immersive virtual reality environment where projectors are directed to four, five or six of the walls of a room-sized cube.

Stereoscopic glasses are used to convey a 3D effect. The room is large enough to allow multiple simultaneous users. Since the projectors are positioned outside of the cube, mirrors are used to reduce the distance required from the projectors to the walls. One or more computers, often SGI workstations, drive the projectors. Software and libraries designed specifically for CAVE applications is available.

The first CAVE was developed in the Electronic Visualization Lab at University of Illinois and was announced and demonstrated at the 1992 SIGGRAPH. It has been used and developed in cooperation with the NCSA, to conduct research in various virtual reality and scientific visualization fields.

CAVE is now a registered trademark of Fakespace Systems and is a commercial product. The concept of the original CAVE has been reapplied widely in scientific, art and commercial fields.

External links

• Electronic Visualization Lab homepage (http://evlweb.eecs.uic.edu/)
• The Cave at NCSA (http://cave.ncsa.uiuc.edu/)
• Fakespace Systems' CAVE® product page (http://www.fakespacesystems.com/cave.shtml)
• Dave Pape's CAVE page (http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/CAVE/) (University of Illinois)