Installation - MVRC

The BNAVE

The Balance Near Automatic Virtual Environment is a four-screen Virtual Reality theater-for-one (the floor is a screen) at the Medical Virtual Reality Center, Department of Otolaryngology, University of Pittsburgh.  Under Dr. Larry Hodges' supervision, Jeffrey Jacobson led the design and construction efforts.  The BNAVE itself is depicted here, on the left, with a viewer in the proper viewer's position.

Since its construction, the MVRC has used the BNAVE as a productive research tool. In 2007 the MVRC hired a third party to make certain improvements to CaveUT, improvements needed for research at the MVRC. The most important was a significant increase in performance, which provides crisp screen synchronization among the client views. They also added support for a treadmill interface which allows the user to walk at a natural pace and move in the virtual environment that way. These improvements are now part of the next release for CaveUT.