Ten Years of Operating a Center with Large-Scale Virtual-Reality Installations: Developments and Learnings

Abstract

Abstract Virtual reality (VR) can be found in many fields including art history, education, research, and industry 4.0. Next to lightweight head-mounted displays there are also VR installations, such as immersive 3D screens, large-scale displays, and CAVE systems, that are used in research, scientific visualization, and also the automotive industry. These systems offer high visual quality and collaborative VR experiences for researchers and have long been used in research. We present learnings and insights from ten years of operating and maintaining a visualization center with large-scale immersive displays and installations. Our report aims to answer questions on the benefits and challenges of such a location-based VR center. We broke down the ten years into three phases and discuss the installations themselves, software, and other various developments of the center over time, illustrated with exemplary use cases. Finally, we cover our experiences at the beginning of phase four with the installation of a (novel) LED CAVE and the future (forward-looking) developments we expect for location-based VR centers.