

Google’s Coolest 20% Project: Liquid Galaxy - novicecoder
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/07/google-liquid-galaxy/

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yellowbkpk
I've spent some time in one of these in a Google building and it is extremely
cool. Each panel is hooked up to a relatively low-powered standard machine
running Google Earth on a stripped-down Ubuntu release. From what I could
surmise (and based on how I saw the system loading/caching data) each machine
spoke on a network and had a differently-set camera view slaved off the center
machine. The input device (in my case it was a 6-DOF joystick) is connected to
the center machine.

Also, it got extremely warm in the room after a few minutes of usage. Plasma
screen backlights + hot graphics cards = quick increase in temp.

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kqr2
It would be cool to hook it up to a virtual reality treadmill:

[http://singularityhub.com/2009/10/19/cool-videos-of-
virtual-...](http://singularityhub.com/2009/10/19/cool-videos-of-virtual-
reality-treadmills/)

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spitfire
SGI used to sell setups like this called reality centers. At first they seem
like a gimmick, but they're terribly useful. When you can get a few people
together and have an "ah ha!" moment within a minute of loading up your
problem that can pay for itself in a matter of weeks.

Wish this stuff would come down market to be more mainstream. Maybe google
will help with that.

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ErrantX
It would be interesting to see if you could put this together using just the
Google Street View API

[http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/services.html...](http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/services.html#Streetview)

I don't see any particular reason why not (though it might not be so smooth)

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bioweek
How hard would it be to make one of these for a FPS? I've always wanted to try
this. I'd love to get monitors on the floor (under glass) and ceiling too.

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jmatt
<http://www.matrox.com/graphics/surroundgaming/en/home/>

I play WoW in 5040x1050 across 3 monitors. I find it hard to go back. It's
immersive when you want it to be. It's a great way to view information without
blocking the main screen. Plus you can crank the font up to something
pleasant.

I think this sort of 3 monitor setup will be everywhere in another few years.
At least for hardcore gamers. And it will be supported by multiple video cards
instead of a special piece of hardware.

 _Warning gaming on two monitors with this setup sucks. The center of the game
(and likely where you are looking most of the time) is at the bi-section of
the monitors._

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Tuna-Fish
Ati's newest graphics cards support a technology they are marketing as
eyefinity -- attaching up to 6 displays to a single card and treating it as a
single large surface.

