Shell 3D Visualization Center

Located in the Energy Innovation Center, the Shell 3D Visualization Center is meant “to create and maintain a community of empowered users who will drive the enhancement of teaching and research at UW, by utilizing visualization technology and embracing collaborative multidisciplinary opportunities” (via the Energy Innovation Center’s homepage). The “Viz Center”, as it is colloquially known, features a four-wall 3D cave, a variety of virtual reality headsets, and a 3D Powerwall, among other resources. It has been used for architectural design, mineral reservoir research, teaching anatomy, and virtual protein analysis.

Perhaps one of the most cutting-edge technologies at the University of Wyoming, the Viz Center allows students and faculty to pursue research in a virtual setting. In How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles claims, “in the posthuman, there are no essential differences between bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism” (How We Became Posthuman, pp. 3). Hayles insists that part of the posthuman condition is a sort of disembodiment, a shift from the physical to the virtual world. While Hayles herself problematizes this claim later in her book, this passage illuminates the fact that we are becoming increasingly present in the virtual and digital world. Any person who complains about young people being on their phones too much acknowledges this. The 3D Visualization center shows how this shift to the virtual might be used for research and scholarship.

For more information about the 3D Visualization Center, visit http://www.uwyo.edu/ser/about-us/building/3d-cave.html

For more information about the School of Energy Resources, visit http://www.uwyo.edu/ser/