The John-e-Box: fostering innovation, inclusion, and collaboration through accessible advanced visualization

Recent advances in commodity graphics and projection hardware have motivated many notable research projects and community discussions about the potential of these technologies to make advanced visualization more broadly accessible. However, the actual realization of this promise on a significant scale is challenging, requiring strong institutional commitment, expert technical support, and a broader visualization context. This paper describes an ongoing effort at Indiana University (IU) to develop a commodity-based, large-format, 3D stereo display system and to deploy a collection of such systems to a range of classrooms, laboratories, galleries, and learning environments throughout the IU system and the state of Indiana. To date, these systems have been used in over 30 projects by investigators in 15 departments across four different IU campuses. In addition, this technology has been used to reach well over 3,000 individuals through a series of coordinated outreach efforts. This initiative is also notable for fostering new interpersonal collaborations and inter-departmental cooperation, for enabling non-traditional applications in education and artistic expression, and for providing an interface to other advanced information technology efforts.