The University of Kentucky Center for Visualization & Virtual Environments

See What's Next

Every day we see our world: the natural world, ourselves, other people, and the results of our creation. But how do we see them? And what would happen if we could see them differently - from a new angle, a different point of view, or a fresh perspective?

The Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments seeks to create these new ways of seeing, to help us interpret our world, to reach a new understanding and to improve the human condition.

Through multi-disciplinary research projects that encompass the fields of engineering, history, medicine, science, technology and art, the Vis Center brings together innovative researchers for the common goal of creating technology that transforms how we see the world.

The Center for Visualization: creating new ways of seeing the world, new views of the world, and new things to see.

Current Projects

Physically Guided Liquid Surface Modeling from Video

In recent years, modeling complex real world objects and scenes using cameras has been an active research topic in both graphics and vision. Work has been done creating 3D models of flowers, trees, hairs, urban building, human motion and cloth. However, there has previously not been a successful reconstruction of water from video. Water's complex shape causes even the best matching methods to yield poor depth maps. Its dynamic nature and complex topological changes over time make human refinement too tedious for most applications. more information

Statistical Array Geometries for Real-Time Covert Surveillance

Audio recording is a typical part of covert surveillance. However, the standard technologies used such as fixed microphone arrays, shotgun microphones and parabolic microphones are useful for picking up speech from distant speakers, but limited in their use by size and position constraints. A better understanding of microphone arrays with complex geometries could enable agents to place microphones at arbitrary positions in a restaurant such as under tables, on lights, chairs, or on the clothing of agents in the room just minutes before the person under surveillance enters the room. more information

Vis Center Videos

Digital Renaissance		Center for Manufacturing

A Forum on Coal in Kentucky

The College of Engineering at the University of Kentucky presented a Forum on Coal in Kentucky November 5, 2009. The purpose of the event was to create a balanced discussion regarding the past, present and future impacts of coal on our state's economy and environment.

www.coalinkentucky.com
Lex. Herald-Leader article