Virtalis’ biggest ever technology day brings virtualisation to life

The event featured presentations from Christie, Intersense, NVidia, Nvis, Vicon, Northumbria University, SGI, Dassault Systèmes, the British Geological Survey (BGS) and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC). Each highlighted emerging trends and technologies, while demonstrations showed the power of haptics and simulation for helicopter crew training. The keynote speaker was Andrew Connell, Virtalis' technical director, talking on how visualisation technology is transforming the workplace. As for points of particular interest: Vicon's Andy Ray told the audience about a revolutionary camera, called Revue, which takes unobtrusive photographs every 30 seconds to create virtual memories. Rab Scott of AMRC showed how VR brings context to visualisation of parts and assemblies, something that is lost in CAD; Nvis announced the forthcoming launch of its nVisor ST50, a see through head mounted display; and SGI's presentation told the virtualisation story from the server, supercomputer and storage perspective. David Cockburn-Price, Virtalis managing director, says: "Feedback has been terrific. So much so that I announced the inception of a Visualisation User Group, prompted by the sheer number of people who told me how valuable it had been."