The AlloSphere Research Facility

Message from the Director Learn more

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, chief designer of the AlloSphere facility, composer, and media artist with over thirty-five (35) years of experience in media systems engineering, outlines the vision for our research.

Sketches of Sensorium Learn More

UC Irvine Beall Center for Art + Technology, with Getty PST Art: Art and Science Collidea

SENSORIUM Learn More

Sensorium Research @ California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara

MYRIOI Link Here

Welcome SIGGRAPH 2020 Community. All Packages and Media are available.

About Learn more

The AlloSphere Research Facility located in the California NanoSystems Insitute. Please inquire with Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin for more information.

News Learn more

The latest news on the AlloSphere Team & Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin's Exhibitions, Lectures, & Research.

ResearchProjects Here

Etherial: A Quantum Composition & Installation featured at ISEA, Gwangju, Republic of Korea. Also can be viewed at the California NanoSystems Institute's AlloPortal and AlloSphere.

PublicationsRead more

A repository of publications in the Media Arts & Sciences. Please contact Dr. Kuchera-Morin for more information.

Software Download Here

Researcher Dr. Basak Alper demonstrates new ways of interacting with graph visualizations in the AlloSphere.

The AlloSphere Research Group Our Team

Our Team is led by Dr. Kuchera-Morin (Director, Inventor, & Lead Researcher) of the Allosphere Research Group. Dr. Andres Cabrera as Media Systems Engineer, Dennis Adderton as Technical Director. And the AlloSphere Team.

Collaborate

The AlloSphere Research Group is open to collaboration and tours.

Contact Dr. Kuchera-Morin

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin Group is available to discuss future collaborations.

About

ALLOSPHERE SUPPORT

Thank You!

A Message from Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

AlloSphere - Who we are

....The AlloSphere: it's a three-story metal sphere in an echo-free chamber.

Think of the AlloSphere as a large, dynamically varying digital microscope that's connected to a supercomputer. Twenty (20) researchers can stand on a bridge suspended inside of the sphere, and be completely immersed in their data. Imagine if a team of physicists could stand inside of an atom and watch and hear electrons spin.

Imagine if a group of sculptors could be inside of a lattice of atoms and sculpt with their material.Imagine if a team of surgeons could fly into the brain, as though it was a world, and see tissues as landscapes, and hear blood density levels as music. This is some of the research that you're going to see that we're undertaking at the AlloSphere.

Kuchera-Morin, J. (2009, October). Stunning data visualization in the AlloSphere. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/joann_kuchera_morin_stunning_data_visualization_in_the_allosphere

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin @ TED

AlloSphere

@ TED 2024

Welcome to the AlloSphere Research Facility, located in California NanoSystems Institue (CNSI) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin: What would it be like?

The AlloSphere research group is directed by Distinguished Professor & Chief Scientist Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin (Ph.D., M.M., B.M.) with over 35 years of experience in media systems engineering.
The research group includes computer scientists, designers, engineers, mathematicians, & media arts researchers.
Members of the AlloSphere Research Group are affiliated with the Media Arts & Technology (MAT) ,graduate program at UCSB.

Sketches of Sensorium

UC Irvine Beall Center for Art + Technology,

with Getty PST Art: Art and Science Collide

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin inside the AlloSphere

Intersecting Science, Engineering, and the Arts

What we do?

The AlloSphere is a one-of-a-kind immersive instrument that is the culmination of over 35 years of Distinguished Professor Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin’s creativity and research efforts in media systems and studio design.

It is differentiated from conventional virtual reality environments by

creating seamless surround-view capabilities
accommodatting 30 or more people simultaneously
immersing viewers in a shared virtual world with no loss of self
embodiying focus on multiple sensory modalities and interaction.

News

Contact: Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin inside the AlloSphere

AlloSphere - What we do

Intersecting Science, Engineering, and the Arts

Compositional Process & Media Systems

Research

Contact: Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

Inside the AlloSphere - Demo: Fabric by Dr. Tim Wood

The AlloSphere is a three-story facility where we use multiple modalities to represent large and complex data, including immersive visualization, sonification, and interactivity.

We are creating technology that will enable experts to use their intuition and experience to examine and interact with complex data to identify patterns, suggest and test theories in an integrated loop of discovery.
Important research areas include quantum information processing and structural materials discovery, bioengineering and biogenerative applications, and arts and entertainment.
These content areas also drive media systems research in immersive display, computation, and interactivity.

Software

Contact: Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

Inside the AlloSphere - Demo TEMP AP

The AlloSphere Facility

AlloSphere Design

...In representing complex and real-world scenarios on computational platforms, a number of data types come into play, including real data from scientific instruments, simulations on that data, as well as mathematical equations as a result of previous years of experimentation and simulation. Reenacting these complex holistic systems interactively and in real time leads to the possibility of new scientific discoveries as well as new forms of art and entertainment, the interactive cinema of the future and real-world simulations of “nature as it could be,” not nature as it is.

Kuchera-Morin,JoAnn. Letter to Newton Harrison. 11 Feb. 2022. Personal collection of JoAnn Kuchera-Morin.

Publications

Contact: Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

Inside the AlloSphere

The AlloSphere (three stories, 26 projectors, & 54.1 Channels of sound.) is a large-scale instrument created as an environment to deliver rich, coherent, interactive, high-resolution 3D video and audio streams from massive scientific datasets is a complex computational and systems engineering task that continues to involve faculty across a variety of disciplines.

Our facility is differentiated from other virtual reality environments by

its seamless surround-view capabilities
its ability to accommodate large groups of researchers concurrently

History

Motivations

Systems Have Structure

Levels of Detail

In Detail:

Design Team

Dr. Kuchera-Morin led the planning of the AlloSphere instrument from the very first day. During the many years of extensive meetings with the architects and design consultants during the design/construction phases, Kuchera-Morin guided the many required code changes as nothing like this facility had ever been built before.

The AlloSphere design was planned originaly for the 62,000 square foot California NanoSystems Institute building (Elings Hall) at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The initial design teams:

Robert Venturi - Architect from 2001-2003
McKay Conant Hoover, Inc. - Acoustical consultant firm
Auerbach and Associates - Visual consultants -

Our Team

Contact: Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

Inside the AlloSphere - Demo: The Earth

Architectural & Instrument Design

The AlloSphere instrument consists of a 3-story cube that is treated with extensive sound absorption material making it one of the largest near-to-anechoic chambers in the world.

Standing inside this chamber is a 5-meter-radius sphere constructed of perforated aluminum that is designed to be optically opaque and acoustically transparent.

High-resolution stereoscopic projectors are mounted unobtrusively below the bridge and above the walkway entrances, approaching eye-limited resolution and covering almost the entire screen surface.

A multichannel loudspeaker system is suspended behind the aluminum screen to provide full-surround 3-D audio driven by real-time sound synthesis and spatialization.

Computation clusters include simulation, sensor-array processing, real-time videoprocessing for motion-capture and visual computing, render-farm/real-time ray-tracing and radiosity cluster, and content and prototyping environments.

Collaborate

Contact: Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

Inside the AlloSphere - Demo: Fractal by Dr. Kon Hyon Kim

Immersive Virtual Environment (I.V.E.)

An AlloSphere Precursor

Analog Computing & HCI

The AlloSphere Instrument

AlloSphere Instrument 1 of 3

AlloSphere Instrument 2 of 3

AlloSphere Instrument 3 of 3

The AlloSphere can accommodate dozens of researchers concurrently.

As you and your colleagues stand on the bridge of the AlloSphere, you will be immersed in scientific simulations, data visualizations, and artistic content.

Making Discoveries from the Arts, Mathematics, & Sciences

Contact

Our Team

Contact

Our AlloSphere Team

Inside the AlloSphere - Team inside Quantum Data

Contact

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

Inside the AlloSphere

Distinguished Professor, Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin (Ph.D., M.M., B.M.) [A printable business card]

If you have any technical problems or questions, please contact our team directly at allosphere@ucsb.edu .

QR Code

AlloSphere Webpage

Visiting the AlloSphere

AlloSphere | Support the Future

ALLOSPHERE SUPPORT

Thank You!

Inside the AlloSphere - Team inside Quantum Data

UCSB's Office of Development - AlloSphere

Directions to the AlloSphere @ 2621 Elings Hall

Directions to the AlloSphere

Take Ward Memorial Boulevard (Highway #217) to the main entrance of UCSB.
The building immediately in front of you with the Kandinsky graphic is the California NanoSystems Institute (Elings Hall). Bear right before the traffic circle. Quickly get into the left lane and turn left at signal into Parking Structure 10.
Find a visitor parking space (marked Coastal Access on the lower levels) and follow the instructions to obtain a parking permit from the vending machine, marked in red on the map below. Enter the California NanoSystems Institute, at the entrance adjacent to the parking garage.
Take the stairs or elevator to the second floor and enter the AlloSphere in room 2621.

Please sign up to visit the AlloSphere and catch our latest public demonstrations and events

QR Code