Using "CaveUT" to build immersive displays with the unreal tournament engine and a PC cluster

CaveUT is a set of software modifications to the graphically powerful game Unreal Tournament (UT). This demonstration uses CaveUT to drive a portable PC-based two-screen monoscopic immersive display. (fig 1) Each screen can rest in any orientation to the viewer and will appear to be a window (or window facet) looking into a single virtual world. Each screen is driven by a standard PC running a UT client, with an extra PC acting as both server and operator console. This design demonstrates methods which can be used to build larger displays with up to 32 screens. Hardware consists of standard PCs, low-cost digital projectors and common hardware, much of which could even be borrowed for a temporary installation. Furthermore, UT is an effective software platform for developing VR applications. Advanced authoring tools (3DS Maxx and Maya) built-in authoring support and a great deal of freeware content are available for UT. Researchers have used UT and its competitor "Quake" for scientific research. (Lewis & Jacobson, 2002) CaveUT is open-source freeware available at http://planetjeff.net, while UT itself is inexpensive and partially open source. The purpose of CaveUT is to provide an affordable way for researchers to build immersive displays.