The effect of tiled display on performance in multi-screen immersive virtual environments

New immersive display systems are emerging, providing new platforms to present 3D data and virtual worlds. However, little effort has been spent evaluating these systems, or providing guiding design principles from a human factors point of view. The objective of the proposed work is to compare performance and user interaction across two immersive displays. The goal is to compare a low-cost, multi-screen, spatially immersive visualization facility to a more expensive system. The low cost system is designed using off-the-shelf components and constructed by arranging LCD displays in a tiled semi-circle. The more expensive system is a semi-rigid, rear projected, continuous curved screen, designed by Rockwell Collins. Our hypothesis is that low-cost systems present a perceptually equivalent visual experience, despite image seams introduced by the connecting display screens. Psychophysical experimentation will compare the two systems through human judgements based on performance. The outcomes, through knowledge gained from the experiments, should make availability of immersive visualization systems possible in areas currently unable to afford such systems or justify the expense.