IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award 2007

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IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award 2007
The 2007 Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award goes jointly to Carolina Cruz-
Neira, Thomas A. DeFanti, and Daniel J. Sandin in recognition of the development of the
CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment. The introduction of the CAVE was a seminal event
in the history of virtual reality, computer graphics, and visualization that has had a pro-
found impact on the development of both the theory and application of virtual environ-
ments. The IEEE VGTC is pleased to award Carolina, Tom and Dan the 2007 Virtual
Reality Technical Achievement Award.
Carolina Cruz-Neira
Louisiana Immersive Technolo-
gies Enterprise
IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality
Technical Achievement Award
Recipient 2007
Biography
Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira is the Executive Director and Chief
Scientist of the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise
(LITE). She is also an Endowed Chair in the College of
Engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Until 2005 she was the Stanley Chair in Interdisciplinary
Engineering, and the Associate Director and co-founder
of the Virtual Reality Applications Center at Iowa State
University (ISU). In 2002, she co-founded and co-directed
the Human-Computer Interaction graduate program at ISU.
Dr. Cruz-Neira’s work in VR started with her Ph.D. disserta-
tion: the design of the CAVE™ Virtual Reality Environment,
the CAVE™ Library software specifications and implementa-
tion, and preliminary research on CAVE™-Supercomputing
integration. She shares the recognition of the Invention of
the CAVE with Tom DeFanti and Dan Sandin. Since then,
her research has been driven by providing applicability and
simplicity to VR technology focusing on software engineer-
ing for VR, applications of VR technology and usability
studies of virtual environments. She spearheaded the open-
source VR API movement with the development of VR
Juggler, and has been an advocate of best practices on how
to build and run VR facilities and applications. Many of her
former students are now doing leading work in VR at places
such as Purdue University, Navtech, Nintendo, EA, Deere &
Company, Boeing, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Argonne
National Laboratory.
Beyond her academic career, Dr. Cruz is an entrepreneur.
She co-founded Infiscape Corporation, a services company
in immersive applications and high-end interactive graph-
ics. She serves on many advisory boards, including Sensics
Inc and Micoy, and has performed corporate consulting in
many companies around the world. Business Week maga-
zine named her in 1997 a “rising research star” in the new
generation of computer science pioneers. She received the
2000 Iowa State Foundation Award for Early Achievement
in Research. In June 2001 she received the Boeing A.D.
Welliver Award. In 2002 she was named Eminent Engineer
by the Tau Beta Pi Honors Society. In 2003 she was inducted
as a Computer Graphics Pioneer by the ACM SIGGRAPH
organization.
Award Information
The IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement
Award was established in 2005. It is given every year to rec-
ognize an individual for a seminal technical achievement in
virtual & augmented reality. VGTC members may nominate
individuals for the Virtual Reality Technical Achievement
Award by contacting the 2007 awards chair for virtual
reality, Larry F. Hodges, at vgtc-vr-awards@computer.org.
Dr. Cruz has a PhD in Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science (EECS) from the University of Illinois at
Chicago (UIC) (1995) and a Master’s degree in EECS at UIC
(1991), She graduated Cum Laude in Systems Engineering
at the Universidad Metropolitana at Caracas, Venezuela in
1987.

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IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award 2007 (cont)
Thomas A. DeFanti
University of California, San
Diego
IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality
Technical Achievement Award
Recipient 2007
Biography
Thomas A. DeFanti, PhD, at the University of California, San
Diego, is a research scientist at the California Institute for
Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2).
At the University of Illinois at Chicago, DeFanti is director
of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL), a distin-
guished professor emeritus in the department of Computer
Science, and the director of the Software Technologies
Research Center. Currently, he is principal investigator
of the NSF International Research Network Connections
Program TransLight/StarLight award to UIC that provides a
persistent 10 Gigabit networking infrastructure between the
USA and Europe, and he is co-principal investigator of the
NSF OptIPuter cooperative agreement with UCSD.
DeFanti is an internationally recognized expert in com-
puter graphics since the early 1970s. DeFanti has amassed
a number of credits, including: use of EVL hardware and
software for the computer animation produced for the
1977 “Star Wars” movie; contributor and co-editor of
the 1987 National Science Foundation-sponsored report
“Visualization in Scientific Computing;” recipient of the
1988 ACM Outstanding Contribution Award; appointed
an ACM Fellow in 1994; and appointed one of several
USA technical advisors to the G7 GIBN activity in 1995.
He also shares recognition with Dan Sandin and Carolina
Cruz-Neira for inventing the CAVE virtual reality theater in
1991.
Striving for a more than a decade to connect high-res-
olution visualization and virtual reality devices over long
distances, DeFanti has collaborated with Maxine Brown to
lead state, national and international teams to build the most
advanced production-quality networks available to scien-
tists, with major NSF funding. He is a founding member of
GLIF, the Global Lambda Integrated Facility, a global group
that manages international switched wavelength networks
for research and education. In the USA, DeFanti estab-
lished the 10 Gigabit Ethernet CAVEwave research network
between EVL/StarLight, Seattle/Pacific Northwest GigaPop,
and UCSD/Calit2 for OptIPuter and other national/inter-
national research uses, which is a model for future high-end
science and engineering collaboration infrastructure.
DeFanti has also been active in the ACM SIGGRAPH
organization and in the ACM/IEEE Supercomputing (SC)
conferences. Current and past activities include: secretary
of SIGGRAPH (1977-1981); co-chair of the SIGGRAPH 79
conference; chair of the 11,000-member SIGGRAPH organ-
ization (1981-1985); co-chair of the 1998, 2000, 2002,
and 2005 iGrid conferences, and continuing editor of the
“SIGGRAPH Video Review” video publication, which he
founded in 1979.
Award Information
The IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement
Award was established in 2005. It is given every year to rec-
ognize an individual for a seminal technical achievement in
virtual & augmented reality. VGTC members may nominate
individuals for the Virtual Reality Technical Achievement
Award by contacting the 2007 awards chair for virtual
reality, Larry F. Hodges, at vgtc-vr-awards@computer.org.

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IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award 2007 (cont)
Daniel J. Sandin
Electronic Visualization Lab
IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality
Technical Achievement Award
Recipient 2007
Biography
Daniel J. Sandin is an internationally recognized pioneer of
electronic art and visualization. He is director emeritus of the
Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL) and a professor emeritus
in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois
at Chicago (UIC). Currently Sandin is a researcher at EVL at
UIC and at CALIT2, part of the University of California at
San Diego. As an artist, he has exhibited worldwide, and has
received grants in support of his work from the Rockefeller
Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National
Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the
Arts. His video animation “Spiral PTL” is in the inaugu-
ral collection of video art at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York. In 1969, Sandin developed a computer-con-
trolled light and sound environment called “Glow Flow” at
the Smithsonian Institution and was invited to join the art
faculty at the University of Illinois the same year. By 1973,
he had developed the Sandin Image Processor, a highly-pro-
grammable analog computer for processing video images in
real time. He then worked with Tom DeFanti to combine the
Image Processor with real-time computer graphics and per-
formed visual concerts, the Electronic Visualization Events,
with synthesized musical accompaniment. In 1991, Sandin,
DeFanti and Carolina Cruz-Neira developed the CAVE
virtual reality (VR) theater.
In recent years, Sandin has been concentrating on the
creation of network based tele-collaborative VR art works
which involve video camera image materials, rich human
interaction and mathematical systems. Sandin’s latest VR
display system is Varrier, a large scale, very high resolution
head tracked barrier-strip autostereoscopic display system
that produces a VR immersive experience without requiring
the user to wear any glasses or trackers. In its largest form it
is a cylindrical array of 65 LCD panels.
Award Information
The IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement
Award was established in 2005. It is given every year to rec-
ognize an individual for a seminal technical achievement in
virtual & augmented reality. VGTC members may nominate
individuals for the Virtual Reality Technical Achievement
Award by contacting the 2007 awards chair for virtual
reality, Larry F. Hodges, at vgtc-vr-awards@computer.org.