Editing Cave automatic virtual environment (section)

==Technology==

A lifelike visual display is created by projectors positioned outside the CAVE and controlled by physical movements from a user inside the CAVE.  A [[motion capture]] system records the real time position of the user. [[Stereoscopic]] [[LCD shutter glasses]] convey a [[3D computer graphics|3D]] image.  The computers rapidly generate a pair of images, one for each of the user's eyes, based on the motion capture data.  The glasses are synchronized with the projectors so that each eye only sees the correct image.  Since the projectors are positioned outside the cube, mirrors are often used to reduce the distance required from the projectors to the screens.  One or more computers drive the projectors.  Clusters of desktop PCs are popular to run CAVEs, because they cost less and run faster.

Software and libraries designed specifically for CAVE applications are available.  There are several techniques for rendering the scene. There are three popular [[scene graph]]s in use today:  [[OpenSG]], [[OpenSceneGraph]], and [[OpenGL Performer]].  OpenSG and OpenSceneGraph are open source; while OpenGL Performer is free, its source code is not included.