Physics & Quantum Mechanics
Quantum information processing and quantum compositions — simulating and sonifying physics from the wavefunction up, as in MYRIOI and quantum mechanics in a hydrogen-like atom.
Where worlds connect, discovery emerges...
Step inside
your data.
The AlloSphere is a one-of-a-kind, three-story immersive instrument where researchers are surrounded by their data — seen, heard, and explored in real time. Accelerating discovery through virtual experimentation.
What is the AlloSphere?
A digital microscope you can stand inside.
Think of the AlloSphere as a large, dynamically varying digital microscope connected to a supercomputer. Up to thirty researchers stand together on a bridge suspended inside a ten-meter sphere and are completely immersed in their data.
Imagine a team of physicists standing inside an atom, watching and hearing electrons spin. A group of sculptors shaping a lattice of atoms as their material. A team of surgeons flying into the brain as though it were a world — seeing tissue as landscape and hearing blood density as music. This is the research underway at the AlloSphere.
The culmination of more than 35 years of Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin's research in media systems and studio design, the AlloSphere sits at the intersection of science, engineering, and the arts. Unlike conventional virtual-reality environments, it offers seamless surround-view, accommodates thirty or more people at once, and immerses them in a shared virtual world with no loss of self — engaging multiple senses and real-time interaction.
How we represent data
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Channels of sound
The facility
One of the largest near-anechoic chambers in the world.
The instrument is a three-story cube treated with deep sound-absorbing material. Standing inside is a five-meter-radius sphere of perforated aluminum — optically opaque and acoustically transparent — wrapped by stereoscopic projectors and a suspended loudspeaker array driving full-surround 3D audio.
- Three-story near-to-anechoic cube
- 10-meter perforated-aluminum sphere
- Render-farm & real-time ray-tracing clusters
- Holds 20–30 researchers concurrently
News & highlights
Where the AlloSphere has been lately.
Honors & community
2025
- Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin received an award from the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara for her contributions to art and technology.
- KEYT News segment — “AI and Art: Santa Barbara at the Crossroads of Imagination and Innovation.”
Sketches of Sensorium
Featured in the Getty Foundation's Pacific Standard Time (PST ART) as a satellite of UC Irvine's Beall Center for Art + Technology exhibition “Future Tense: Art, Complexity, and Uncertainty,” drawing record-breaking attendance.
The AlloSphere at TED 2024
The AlloSphere Research Group presented at TED 2024, “The Brave and the Brilliant,” in Vancouver, Canada.
What we do
Intersecting science, engineering & the arts.
We represent large and complex data through multiple senses at once, enabling experts to use their intuition and experience to find patterns, suggest theories, and test them in an integrated loop of discovery.
Visualization
Seamless, full-surround, high-resolution 3D imagery wraps the sphere, turning massive datasets into worlds you can navigate.
Sonification
54.1 channels of spatial audio give data a voice — revealing structure the eye alone would miss through real-time sound synthesis.
Interactivity
Multi-user tracking and intuitive controls let teams reach in, reshape simulations, and explore together with no loss of self.
Research areas
Driving discovery across disciplines.
Materials & Immersive VR Systems
Discovering and navigating new materials — sonifying emission spectra and exploring datasets such as the copper-tungsten lattice and multi-center hydrogen bond with the TINC toolkit.
Bio-technologies & Medical Research
From fMRI brain landscapes to anatomically faithful bodies researchers can fly through, advancing medicine and biological insight.
Arts & Entertainment
Avant-garde immersive works and new genres of expression — from Sensorium to Last Whispers — the interactive cinema of the future, scientifically grounded.
Instrument Design & Engineering
Designing the AlloSphere itself — media-systems engineering and the software, such as AlloPortal, that drives full-surround visualization, sound, and interaction.
Featured projects
Worlds built inside the sphere.
Quantum Series
Hydrogen-Atom Wavefunctions
A time-dependent Schrödinger simulation of an electron in a hydrogen-like atom, visualized and sonified in real time.
Materials
Multi-Center Hydrogen Bond
Navigate an atomic lattice while listening to the sonified emission spectra of a newly discovered atomic bond.
Materials Science
Transmission Electron Microscope/Atom Probe Visualization
Immersive stereoscopic visualization of TEM and atom probe tomography data revealing nanoscale imperfections in steel.
Mathematics
Fractal
A real-time, interactive journey through the 4D Mandelbrot set, rendered with immersive ray casting — navigating the infinite, self-similar complexity of higher-dimensional mathematics.
Interaction
Interactive Fabric Simulation
Gestural cloth simulation in an immersive environment — reach in and shape what you see using tracked hand and head motion.
Immersive Media
Last Whispers
An immersive oratorio on language extinction, mixed and presented in the AlloSphere’s 54.1-channel sound environment.
Media gallery
Images & video from the sphere.
Click any thumbnail to open a larger view.
Photos
Videos
Message from the director
Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin
Director & Inventor, AlloSphere Research Facility · Distinguished Professor of Media Arts & Technology and of Music
“If we can build a computational framework that lets us represent complex information across fields visually and sonically — using all of our senses — this will transform research, education, and society as a whole.”
The AlloSphere is the culmination of more than 35 years of Dr. Kuchera-Morin's research in media systems and studio design. The research group includes computer scientists, designers, engineers, mathematicians, and media artists affiliated with the Media Arts & Technology (MAT) graduate program at UCSB.
The research group
A team of all-of-the-above hybrids.
Members are composers, computer scientists, designers, engineers, media artists, new-media architects, performers — and all-of-the-above hybrids — affiliated with the Media Arts & Technology (MAT) graduate program at UCSB.
Dr. Thea Wood
Media Systems Engineer
Audio spatialization, creative coding, HCI, and virtual worldmaking; Research Director at CREATE.
Dr. Kon Hyong Kim
Research Fellow · Sr. Media Systems Engineer
Immersive VR engineering and immersive-graphics software development, with a focus on multimodal presence.
Dr. Gustavo Alfonso Rincon
Design Research Director · Curator
New-media architecture and engineering, computational design and fabrication, and immersive AR/VR/XR exhibition design.
Dennis Adderton
Business Development & Technical Consultant
Strategy and technical consulting for the facility; former Technical Director of the AlloSphere.
Larry Zins
Computer Systems Administrator
Maintains the systems and infrastructure behind the AlloSphere Research Group.
Ryan Millett
PhD Researcher
Composer, programmer, and multimedia artist exploring computation and the dynamics of the natural world.
Sabina Hyoju Ahn
PhD Researcher
Artist working across auditory, tactile, and visual media, blending digital and analog technology.
Dr. Karl Yerkes
Computer Systems & Network Administrator
MAT Lecturer, and systems and network architecture and administration.
Research collaborators include Dr. Hannen Wolfe, Dr. Myungin Lee, Dr. Graham Wakefield, Dr. Charlie Roberts, and Dr. Lance Putnam.
Collaborate
Partner with the AlloSphere.
The AlloSphere Research Group is open to collaboration and tours. We seek corporate, industry, academic, and institutional partnerships on short- and long-term projects — providing facilities, infrastructure, and research & technical support through every phase.
Research & industry partnerships
Affiliations and partnerships across science, engineering, and the arts, with support during all phases of project development.
Showcase work in 3D
Present visually and sonically in the AlloSphere — 100° to 360° immersive projection with three rings of 3D spatial audio — or the AlloPortal's reconfigurable 24-speaker system.
Visits, tours & open houses
On-site visits are welcome for potential partners; we also host bi-annual public open houses — watch the News highlights for the next date.
Arrange a visitPast & current collaborators include NVIDIA, Sanford Burnham Prebys, UNESCO (Last Whispers), the Getty Foundation, UC Irvine's Beall Center, and Virginia Tech's Institute for Creativity, Arts & Technology, among many others.
Contact
Get in touch.
To arrange a research visit or discuss a collaboration, contact the AlloSphere Team or Professor Kuchera-Morin directly.
AlloSphere Team
General & visit inquiries:
allosphere (at) ucsb.edu
(805) 893-3010
Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin
Director, AlloSphere Research Facility
jkm (at) create.ucsb.edu
2209 Elings Hall
(805) 893-3010
Find us
Room 2621, Elings Hall
California NanoSystems Institute
UC Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6065
Support
Support the future of immersive discovery.
Your support advances research at the intersection of science, engineering, and the arts. Gifts can be made through UCSB's Office of Development, and corporate sponsorships are welcome — contact Dr. Kuchera-Morin at (805) 893-3010 or jkm (at) create.ucsb.edu.
Make a gift to the AlloSphere
Help advance immersive, multi-sensory research and education.
