Guest: David McConville - Elumenati
Host: Michael Johnson - PodTech

David McConville - Elumenati
My name is David McConville. I am with the Elumenati. We make immersive projection displays and we've worked with NVIDIA quite a bit over the past few year for creating immersive environments to showcase their hardware capabilities.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
So what's the connection between that, I know that NVIDIA's known for Graphics Processing Units. Now we have here -- why don't you describe where we are, because we're kind of in a trance.

David McConville - Elumenati
Sure. We're in an inflatable dome theatre that allows us to project a very wide field of view, real-time graphics, so that people feel very immersed inside of an environment. The reason that we're here is because it really showcases the power of real-time 3D graphics hardware. What we can do with GPUs now form a single machine using a projector mounted with our custom optics that projects at a 180o, so that you look into this dome, and you can fly around inside of the immersive environment at a very large scale.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
Now, how was it done before?

David McConville - Elumenati
Previously, and still in some of the larger theaters, it requires multiple projectors, multiple computers and what this -- with increases in graphics processing power, its enabled us to do this with a single computer. So right now we're running off of one HP machine in the back that's got a Quadro 4500 running this entire environment.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
I know it's a real different kind of lens. It's a spherical lens that you've got on this?

David McConville - Elumenati
Correct. It's a fisheye lens that we've designed that we have a patent on called Omnifocus, that allows us to use the same lens configuration in just about any size dome, so that you -- and I could show you that, if we put a piece of paper in front of the lens and as we pull it back, its in focus everywhere. So we can use the same configuration for dome this size, one much smaller, one much bigger. So it's really, its scalable in that way.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
So, again, you couldn't do any of this without a really powerful Graphics Processing Unit. That's basically (Voice Overlap)

David McConville - Elumenati
Absolutely correct, without the increases in quality and in speed of GPUs, there's no way we could this effectively in real time with a single channel machine.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
What are some practical uses for this? I know that some of this is installed from local museums here in New York?

David McConville - Elumenati
Correct. We work with the American Museum of Natural History. They work with NASA to develop the Digital Universe Database that allows us to fly through the entire known Universe in real time, where we could start off at the surface of the planet Earth, and fly out 13 billion light years and anywhere in between. That's been used quite a bit for educational applications all around the country. We've worked with other projects doing molecular visualization, we take kids into the molecular level and have them learn all about different types of carbon, different molecules and different atoms. Its used quite a bit by NASA actually for doing simulation with the Rovers, so that they understand where the Rovers are going to go, what they're going to get. When the Rovers are actually sending back the data, for instance, the American Museum of Natural History will model Mars, so we can take people down to the surface of Mars and really show them what it feels like to be a Rover on the surface. In addition, obviously, this is flight simulation applications which are very, very popular, because it gives you the feel of view and the scale of actually being inside the plane.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
Tell me the name of the company again, Elumenati.

David McConville - Elumenati
Name of the company is Elumenati. You can find us at elumenati.com.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
All right, that's a fascinating new thing. I will let a few more people crash the plane here. We'll have some pictures over on PodTech, and thanks for being with us on the Podcast.

David McConville - Elumenati
Absolutely, thanks.