VR-Arena
A wide rear-projected arena with active stereo, used for collaborative working sessions, presentations and demonstrations. Smaller and simpler than the dome, but the stereo pipeline and the restricted-access projector room make it its own kind of awkward.
At a glance
| Surface | Stewart Filmscreen Aeroview 100, rear projection, 6691 × 1930 mm (~12.9 m²) |
| Projectors | 3 × Barco F90-4K13-3D, 2500 × 1600 each, each with its own mirror |
| Total resolution | ~5592 × 1600 after blending |
| Stereo | Active stereo — separate left-eye and right-eye pipelines on separate computers |
| Compute | WALL-E (Dell Precision 7820, 2D) + BURN-E (HP Z6, active stereo), piloted by EVE |
| Audio | BOSE 5.1 surround — Focusrite sound card via USB to EVE, into 3 × BOSE 228 Series V amplifiers |
| Software | C-Play, Medialon, OpenSpace, Unreal Engine |
| Calibration | Barco Pulse |
| Control | Control panel — vr-panel.citn.liu.se |
| Machines | Computers |
Because the projectors are rear-projected via mirrors, a projector that is physically knocked affects the image in a mirrored direction from what you would expect. Note that before assuming a software cause.
Physical access — read this first
The three projectors live in VR projection room G111b, reached only through VR server room G112.
- You need access to G112 and the ability to disarm the security alarm.
- You need the special C-tech key for G111b.
The G111b door can only be opened with the key from both sides, and it closes itself for fire and security reasons. Leaving the key in the lock will lock you — or someone else — in or out.
Projector positions
| Projector | Placement in G111b | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Closest to the door | Left of the screen |
| 2 | Between the other two | Middle of the screen |
| 3 | Furthest from the door | Right of the screen |
Web interfaces are on port 9999, e.g. vr-proj1.c.itn.liu.se:9999. Full addresses on Projectors.
NDI units
The VR-Arena rack holds the NDI hardware used in the signal chain — two Birddog units on the top shelf and a Kiloview N60 below, next to the Kramer HDMI matrix.
Matrices
Signal switching in the VR-Arena rack, between the compute machines and the projectors:
- Kramer VS-88UT (HDMI, top) — back HDMI connections to the projectors
- LightWare MX2-8x8-DH-8DPio-A (DisplayPort, middle) — left eye signal from WALL-E and BURN-E
- LightWare MX2-8x8-DH-8DPio-A (DisplayPort, bottom) — right eye signal from WALL-E and BURN-E
Addresses and web interfaces are on Matrixes.
Blackbox fiber links
The three Blackbox units send dual-channel 2560 × 1600 images over fiber to the projectors (one left-eye channel and one right-eye channel per projector). Each projector has one DisplayPort-to-fiber encoder on the computer side (in the G112 rack) and one decoder on the projector side (in G111b, next to its projector). The decoder is powered from the projector's own PDU, port 2 ("BlackBox Ext").
Audio
5.1 surround. The Focusrite sound card at the top of the audio rack connects directly to EVE through USB, and from there into the three BOSE 228 Series V professional amplifiers at the bottom of the rack. Each amplifier knob is labeled with the channel it controls (L/R, C/SW, SL/SR).
