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Spring 2004 |
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Cover Story
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If life imitates art, it's likely to imitate the art of engineering as well. This is not lost on IMSE Professor Carolina Cruz-Neira, who recently felt the power of this proposition in both her personal and professional lives. Carolina Cruz-Neira was at the 2004 Madrid World Internet Fair in her native Spain earlier this year to promote the CAVE virtual reality environment as a tool to market Spanish tourism. Visitors could witness the power of CAVE to recreate an interactive, three-dimensional Hindu temple, an ancient Spanish monastery, or the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.  Cruz-Neira also included "Ashes to Ashes," a work honoring victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks against her adopted country, the United States.The fair opened February 11 with a visit by Spanish President José María Aznar, who was honorary chairman of the event. But because his security team had not swept the venue, Aznar was not allowed to enter the CAVE to experience the emotional force of the 9/11 tribute or other virtual demonstrations. "His guards thought it was a risk," says Cruz-Neira. "Aznar reached to shake my hand and come in, and they grabbed him and pushed him away." One month later, on March 11, Spain suffered its own 9/11 as bombs ripped through several Madrid train stations, claiming nearly 200 lives and injuring another 2,000. Four days later, in a political aftershock from the attacks, Aznar's government was defeated at the polls. Enticing the virtual tourist  The Madrid exposition is staged annually to feature marketing and communications technologies that are crucial to Spain's economic development. Marketing involves the manipulation of perceptions, and, says Cruz-Neira, Spain has not been perceived historically as a top destination by Americans considering vacations to Europe."In the United States, when people think of Europe, they usually think of France or Italy," Cruz-Neira observes. "Few think of Spain as a tourist destination. So this year the government was especially interested in ways technology could help promote Spain." The CAVE represents one potential tool for altering these perceptions. In partnership with Impact4D VR, Spain's business leader in virtual marketing applications, and the Spanish tourism bureau SEGITUR, Cruz-Neira wants to help Spain promote tourism in a way brochures or posters could never hope to match. She believes her homeland should be an easy sell. "Spain has more to offer than almost any European country," observes Cruz-Neira. "It has a rich cultural heritage. We have mosques and Moorish palaces in the south and a lot of Celtic influence in the north. We have one of the oldest known expressions of art in the Alta Mira caves. We have Greek, Roman, and Phoenician ruins, all very well preserved." These attractions, she says, are naturals for recreation in a virtual environment, and her team has already designed several demonstrations of Spain's historical, archeological, and architectural treasures. "We showed these places in order to demonstrate how easily this technology travels," she says. "We brought it from the U.S. and set it up in two days." That portability is key to the display's appeal: all of the programming for multiple demonstratio  ns can be loaded onto half a dozen laptop computers and displayed on framing panels using portable projectors. "The whole thing can be collapsed into a shipping crate or two, like with a rock concert," notes Cruz-Neira.Besides its portability, the hardware is also relatively inexpensive, according to Cruz-Neira. Admittedly, greater costs lie in developing software for the displays, a labor-intensive effort similar to film production and requiring sponsorship by governmental and industrial partners—a natural alliance in the case of tourism promotion. That, too, has an Iowa State connection and economic development potential for Iowa. "We formed a spin-off last November to develop these kinds of facilities commercially," says Cruz-Neira. The business was started by graduates of Iowa State, who to date have tackled projects that include the Golden Gate in San Francisco. "In the long term," Cruz-Neira adds, "this might be like a film company that develops a piece, then markets the rights to different people." Much like traditional travelogues, such pieces can include music and narrative. But the designed environment is both three-dimensional and interactive, giving users freedom of movement and control unlike films, whose narratives typically are fixed and linear. Still, says Cruz-Neira, marketing directors would be able to "direct" the experience toward given commercial objectives in the course of promoting tourism, in effect offering guided tours designed to entice participants into considering visiting actual sites in Spain. Looking to the future Cruz-Neira takes great pride in her homeland, and using virtual technology to promote Spanish tourism is, for her, more than merely designing 3-D travel posters. But as New Yorkers learned after 2001, terrorist acts can profoundly affect visitors' perceptions, and indeed New York City suffered a significant drop-off in tourism after 9/11. 
Beyond its economic benefits, though, tourism is one hallmark of an open society, stimulating the free exchange of people and ideas across borders, another reason Cruz-Neira is bullish on the prospects of CAVE and similar technologies for developing tourism in Spain and other nations."I don't think the bombing of the trains will have any particular influence on how the government promotes Spain," Cruz-Neira remarks. "The bombings were unfortunate, but Spain has been dealing with terrorism for 30 years. We all lost family and friends in the attacks." As for the unexpected change in government, Cruz-Neira is philosophical. "It will probably affect when this is going to happen," she acknowledges. "As usual, whatever the previous government has done, the new government will want to do differently. We're still negotiating, and we have no indication that the project is not going to move forward." She pauses and adds, "It's a tremendous opportunity, and the government is committed to bring all that richness to the world." |
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