The technology behind the C6 is truly leading edge. The images on the six walls are created by 24 Sony SXRD projectors, each capable of generating 4096 × 2160 native resolution. A pair of projectors is stacked to fill each of the six walls with a 4096 × 4096 image. Each pair is then duplicated to create left/right eye stereo versions of the image for each wall. The system can generate a total of 201,326,592 pixels, or 100,663,296 pixels for each eye.

The Iowa State University C6 image generator incorporates 96 NVIDIA Quadro professional GPUs in an HP computer cluster.

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All this is powered by what may very well be the world’s largest graphics computing cluster — 48 rack-mounted HP xw9300 workstations plus one control node that runs the application and interactivity software. Each workstation contains two NVIDIA Quadro FX professional graphics cards along with an NVIDIA Quadro Gsync card to synchronize the displays and stereo phase of all outputs. In total the cluster provides a total of 96 channels of graphics output, 48 per eye.

“Our biggest challenge in designing and developing the system was in gen-locking and swap-synching,” says Hoffmeister. “The number of nodes is simply unprecedented. I don’t know of anyone else who has attempted such a complex graphics system. The key is the Quadro graphics combined with the Gsync technology”

The graphics cluster is connected to the projectors by multi-mode, fiber-optic, DVI cables for noise-free data transfer. The entire C6 system uses a total of 3.2 miles (5.15 km) of fiber-optic cable.