56 SOLUTIONS: RENAULT CAVE, PARIS August 2014
The facility boasts the highest resolution ever realised in a VR environment
FRANCE Exploring the CAVE
New technology takes virtual reality to the next level at automobile manufacturer’s HQ, writes Tom Bradbury
Installed Video
Sony SRX-T105 4K projectors Digital Projection Titan WUXGA 3D projectors
Stewart Filmscreen screen
ART Tracking system F
rench automobile manufacturer Renault has recently implemented a new CAVE (Cave
Automatic Virtual Environment) facility at its Paris headquarters. While other auto manufacturers have also implemented CAVE technology, Renault’s facility boasts the highest resolution ever realised in a VR environment, with five sides of Sony-based imaging that can deliver up to 16k resolution. Andras Kemeny is
founder and head of Renault’s Virtual Reality and Immersive Simulation Technologies Group, which provides virtual mock-up and simulation tools for various departments within the company, including Vehicle Architecture, Ergonomics and Styling. “At Renault, we were
aware of CAVE technology from the beginning, around 1990,” he says. “We had
talks with others in the field, including the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, where they had an early six-sided CAVE. At the time, the general consensus at Renault was that the image quality and frame rate were not sufficient for our use.”
Moving forward It was a chance meeting that renewed Kemeny’s interest in the CAVE. “I was teaching a class at Paris Tech, and one of the invited professors was Jim Oliver, who was the head of Iowa State University’s VRAC (Virtual Reality Applications Center) facility,” says Kemeny. “They had one of the first 4K CAVE systems. It was really impressive, and we felt it was finally time to move forward with CAVE.” Renault partnered with Mechdyne to design and implement the CAVE facility. “Renault approached us to bid on the project, because we had already
built a six-sided CAVE of that resolution, and we understood the challenges,” explains Mechdyne’s Dr Richard Cashmore. “We found that Mechdyne was not bound to a specific technology,” Kemeny explains. “They were able to look at the entire technological landscape, and consider combinations of different brands and products. Their approach was very focused on our specific goals, rather than on whatever technology they favoured.” “We had a number of meetings with them to talk about their ideas,” Cashmore continues. “We worked to create a solution that fit their budget, and to address their space limitations, including a height restriction.” The system includes
five sides of Sony 4K projectors at 5.5K lumens, scalable to 16K – the
first 16K VR environment anywhere in the world. Kemeny adds: “The
Sony projector Mechdyne specified was designed for cinema-based solutions. Calibrating multiple projectors was not something Sony had addressed. Sony provided us some data, and then our engineers at Renault and Mechdyne collaborated for
several months to design a calibration protocol. We’ve been quite happy with the results.” The CAVE and supporting
PowerWall are also equipped with three Digital Projection Titan WUXGA projectors, screens from Stewart Filmscreen, a computing and rendering cluster comprised of a head node with 18 rendering
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