AlloSphere

The AlloSphere Research Facility (branded as AlloSphere) is a research laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Housed in a theater-like pavilion with a spherical structure made of opaque material, it is designed to project computer-generated imagery and sound. The facility is used for a wide range of applications, including geographic information systems (GIS), scientific research, artistic exploration, and other forms of data visualization.^[1] The AlloSphere grew out from the university's departments of electrical engineering and computer science and the media arts and technology program.^[2]

The AlloSphere Research Facility

Elings Hall which houses The AlloSphere, August 2013
Established	2007; 18 years ago (2007)
Field of research	Technology, multimedia, sciences, art, design
Director	JoAnn Kuchera-Morin
Location	Santa Barbara, California, United States
Campus	University of California, Santa Barbara
Website	allosphere.ucsb.edu

The AlloSphere is housed at UCSB California NanoSystems Institute^[3] building, "CNSI," or Elings Hall, a 62,000-square-foot (5,800 m²) facility that opened in 2007.^[4] The AlloSphere is intended to integrate technology and media.^[5]

The AlloSphere includes a three-story cube that has been insulated extensively with sound-absorbing material, making it one of the largest echo-less chambers in the world. Within the chamber are two hemispheres of 5 meter radii, made of perforated aluminum. These are opaque and acoustically transparent.^[6]

There are 26 video projectors, to create as much of a field of vision as possible.^[6]

The loudspeaker real-time sound synthesis cluster (140 individual speaker elements plus sub-woofers) is suspended behind the aluminum screen resulting in 3-D audio. Computation clusters include simulation, sensor-array processing, real-time video processing for motion-capture and visual computing, render-farm/real-time ray-tracing and radiosity cluster, and content and prototyping environments.^[6]

The AlloSphere was developed by a team of scientists, led primarily by Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, a professor in the field of Composition, of the Media Arts & Technology Program of UCSB.^[6]

Selected publications

• The AlloSphere Offers an Interactive Experience of Nano-sized Worlds https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=121535&WT.mc_id=USNSF_1
• Research at the AlloSphere Facility https://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/mmg_disp.jsp?med_id=73444
• Equipping the AlloSphere, an Environment for Immersive Data Exploration https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0855279
• Big Data's People-Changing Machine https://www.forbes.com/sites/quentinhardy/2011/07/11/big-datas-people-changing-machine/
• Marriage of Science & Art https://web.archive.org/web/20160302151948/http://www.ucsbalum.com/Coastlines/2011/Summer/feature_allosphere.html
• Living Data: The Three-Story-High AlloSphere Creates Unique Visualizations http://www.technologyreview.com/photoessay/420413/living-data/
• Sensory Overloader: 3-D Tower Lets Researchers Climb Inside Their Data https://www.wired.com/2010/05/st_allosphere/?pid=2039
• A 360-Degree Virtual Reality Chamber Brings Researchers Face to Face with Their Data https://www.wired.com/2010/05/st_allosphere/?pid=2039
• Enter the AlloSphere: Inside UCSB's Three-Dimensional Immersive Theater, the 21st Century Face of Our Discipline-Bending University http://www.independent.com/news/2008/nov/06/enter-allosphere/