SD&A 2025 Keynote: Half a Century of Innovation in Interactive Electronic Displays ...

Описание: This presentation was delivered at the SD&A 2025 conference (3-6 February 2025) held in Burlingame, CA USA, in a joint session with the Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality conference. For more information see: http://stereoscopic.org

Note: at the end of his presentation, speaker Dan Sandin displayed his short 2005 3D film “A Study of 4D Julia Sets”. This film is also available standalone in a top/bottom 4K 3D format better suited for 3DTVs, at    • SD&A 2025: 3D film “A Study of 4D Julia Sets”  

Title: Half a Century of Innovation in Interactive Electronic Displays for Art and Science at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at UIC and the Qualcomm Institute at UCSD [SDA-334]

Abstract: The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL), established in 1973 at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), specialized in interactive electronic displays even before the advent of the frame buffer. By ingeniously combining digital and analog systems, EVL enabled real-time interactive computer graphics through the Graphics Symbiosis System (GRASS). This system was instrumental for animator Larry Cuba in creating the computer graphics for the original 1977 "Star Wars" film, which was done frame by frame on 35mm film), as well as contributing to lesser-known movies like "UFO: Target Earth" for which the special effects were captured on video. SpiralPTL is a work preserved in the Museum of Modern Art's video art collection. Throughout the decades, EVL advanced the technology of computer graphics but also deeply integrated art, science, and education researchers and teaching faculty. This collaboration led to the creation of an interdisciplinary MFA program in Electronic Visualization, bridging UIC's Engineering College with its School of Art and Design. EVL's later innovations include the development of numerous interactive stereoscopic and autostereoscopic systems, most notably the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE). This paper will describe and analyze these technological advancements, discussing both their successes and their challenges in adoption by scientists, engineers, and artists. The narrative will reflect on how these technologies have shaped interdisciplinary collaboration and the evolution of electronic art and visualization techniques over the past fifty years.

Speaker: Daniel J. Sandin, University of Illinois at Chicago (United States)

Biography: Daniel J. Sandin is director emeritus of the Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL) and a professor emeritus in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). As an artist, he has exhibited worldwide, and has received grants in support of his work from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His video animation "Spiral PTL" is in the inaugural collection of video art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2007 Sandin received the IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award. He went on to develop a series of VR display systems including Varier, a stereo VR display that does not require 3D glasses, and CAVE2, a large (20-foot) cylindrical display based on LCDs.

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