As a follow up, here is a zip with a small C# tool that allows you to open a Unity window at any resolution (up to 4096×4096 in our testing), including resolutions spanning multiple monitors.  Multiple monitor support is not currently supported by the Windows native viewer, and is necessary for environments like our dome.

Just fire up the executable (LaunchFS.exe), click the ? button to browse for the appropriate .unity3d file.  The app will create the .html file to launch your application with the appropriate settings.

Give it a try, feel free to send suggestions.

Notes:

• Executable is in the bin/x86/Release directory
• Max resolution is 4096×4096
• Requires the .Net runtime 3.5 SP1 available from Microsoft.

The Social Computing Room is a unique space.  There are many ways to look at the space, and one of them that is becoming quite interesting is as a ‘port’ between the emerging virtual world and the physical world.  (Here’s an example of an early experiment, and here’s a bit about a more recent project).

We are looking to push the Social Compting Room in new directions, and we invite collaborators to help us, formulate their own projects, and leverage the work that has been done.   The extensible nature of the Social Computing Room space, and the background of the Renci organization in sensors, robotics, and advanced visualization and HCI help make this a fertile ground for innovation.

So, given that, here’s a bit of fun!  We welcome you to come and visit the Social Computing Room, as well as the other visualization spaces at ITS-Manning.  In the meantime, click here to launch the Unity browser plug-in to take a quick look inside the SCR (thanks to Eric Knisley).

Hint:  launch the browser plug-in, then right click in the viewer and select ‘launch full screen’, then you can use the w,s,a,d keys to move about, and your mouse to look around!

This afternoon, folks from UNC, NC State, UNC Asheville, and Duke met to talk about common interests in visualization tools such as the Unity3d game engine.

Everyone discussed current projects and ideas, and some common threads were found:

• Mapping GIS and DEM (digital elevation models) into environments such as Unity.
• Integration of mobile devices and sensors to create hybrid environments for augmented reality and other applications.
• Integration of real-world media into environments, along with annotations.
• WiiMote and WiiFit as user interaction.
• Game engines combined with dome and stereo environments.

This is an informal group, but we hope to trade notes, ideas, and code as projects evolve!   Here’s a shot of the group meeting in the Social Computing Room, along with remote participants via the Vidyo system at RENCI.

Meeting about Unity game engine at RENCI

The application of game technology to teaching, training, and research has been a topic of interest at RENCI@UNC.  More specifically, the adaptation of game engines and 3D environments to the specialized visualization environments at the engagement center is a promising area for experimentation and collaboration.

Last summer, though the UNC Games4Learning initiative, RENCI@UNC researched many of the available game development platforms, presenting the results at a Games4Learning event.  Of the evaluated game engines, RENCI took interest in the Unity3D platform, recently released for Windows.  Several groups from both UNC and NC State are planning to get together to compare notes, and to collaboratively explore the capabilities and applications of these tools.  On Wednesday, June 3rd, at 1:30PM,  this group will meet at ITS Manning to explore some of the possibilities.  If anyone else is interested in Unity, or the application of game engine technology in immersive dome and 3D environments, just drop us a line.

We very recently obtained copies of Unity, and have been working through some of the basics.  One of the first activities was to create specialized code to show Unity-built 3D  environments in our Global Immersion dome system.   This was successfully accomplished with a good bit of code-hacking to render the proper camera views and viewports for the four channel dome system.  There are some known issues with the Windows stand-alone viewer that we were able to work around.  We did some imaginative manipulation of the Unity Plug-in using a browser embedded within a WPF application that allows arbitrary screen resolutions, as well as spanning across multiple displays.  Look for a post later with some technical details.

Here’s a video of Unity3D in the dome…

(Ed note…We had some video problems, but the link finally works).