VIRUP : The Virtual Reality Universe Project
This tool addresses the need for visualizing terabytes of astrophysical data in an immersive way for researchers and educators, though it is incremental as it builds on existing VR and data visualization techniques.
VIRUP is a C++ open-source software that creates an interactive virtual reality environment for navigating large astrophysical datasets, achieving 90 frames per second to ensure immersion and supporting various immersive systems like VR headsets and domes.
VIRUP is a new C++ open source software that provides an interactive virtual reality environment to navigate through large scientific astrophysical datasets obtained from both observations and simulations. It is tailored to visualize terabytes of data, rendering at 90 frames per second in order to ensure an optimal immersion experience. While VIRUP has initially been designed to work with gaming virtual reality headsets, it supports different modern immersive systems like 3D screens, 180 deg. domes or 360 deg. panorama. VIRUP is scriptable thanks to the Python language, a feature that allows to immerse visitors through pre-selected scenes or to pre-render sequences to create movies. A companion video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJJXbcf8kxA) to the last SDSS 2020 release as well as a 21 minute long documentary, The Archaeology of Light, https://go.epfl.ch/ArchaeologyofLight have been both 100% produced using VIRUP.