Control Software for the productive Use of distributed IPT Installations

Abstract

Over the last few years the number of industrial immersive projection technology (IPT) installations has grown rapidly. Most of these systems are powered by one or more SGI Onyx graphics computers with several independent graphics pipes and quite a few CPUs. Since these machines represents a big investment, many installations are designed to make use of the Onyx graphics power at different presentation areas and meeting rooms. In this paper we will introduce a new client/server approach for controlling such distributed IPT installations where multiple presentations and work sessions run simultaneously and where different users access the resources of the facility in parallel. We first discuss the necessity of multiple configurations of the IPT hardware for different kinds of presentations and applications. After this, we explain the special requirements for the control of distributed multi-user Reality Center s ( Reality Center is a trademark of SGI). We then present the client/server architecture of our new Reality Center management software (RCMS). Finally, we will give an outlook for possible future extensions of the software to meet individual requirements.