Professor Michael Jenkin and his team at York’s Centre for Vision Research have developed a ‘virtual reality room’ called IVY (Immersive Virtual Environment at York) in order to study our perception of gravity and motion, and how we orient ourselves spatially.

“We're displaying an environment from [the popular videogame] Doom right now, but of course that’s just an example of one simulation,” Jenkin says.

The room is the only six-sided immersive environment in Canada, and one of a mere handful internationally. Its walls, ceiling and floor are comprised of pixel maps generated by a cluster of computers running Linux. The entire structure is made of the same glass used in the CN Tower’s observation deck. The floor alone took two years to complete.

Researchers are able to manipulate the environment within IVY, changing the scenery and its orientation, in order to understand how people become disoriented and how their internal perception of ‘up’ and ‘down’ is informed.

“Some people become incredibly confused. I’ve actually seen people fall over in there,” Jenkin says.

The research is being used by the Canadian Space Agency and National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) to find ways to help strengthen astronauts’ sense of ‘up’ and ‘down’ in zero gravity environments.

Jenkin’s team also hopes to find methods of counteracting the gradual loss of spatial orientation that occurs as we age.

One of the most challenging aspects of IVY’s design was to create a system that allowed subjects to experience both the look and feel of moving through the virtual space.

A graduate student developed a wireless ‘head-tracking’ device that follows subjects’ movements and alters the displays accordingly. Users wear stereo shutter glasses which give a 3-D effect.

“The computer compensates when you move around so it looks correct. It knows where you’ve moved, where your eyes are,” says Jenkin.

As the country’s only truly immersive environment, IVY is also in demand from private industry for a myriad of projects.

”If someone brings us their data set, we can render it and they can walk through and interact with it,” says Jenkin.

“We’re constantly pushing the boundaries and learning how better to do VR.”

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For further information, please contact:

Melissa Hughes, Media Relations, York University, 416-736-2100 x22097/ mehughes@yorku.ca