The University of Bern uses Scalable Display technology for its Sensorimotor Laboratory

The Institute of Sports Sciences of the University of Bern of Switzerland is revolutionizing research through the cave of its Sensorimotor Laboratory. In this project, the edge-blending projection solutions of Scalable Display Technologies for an immersive visual environment.

Founded in 1834, the University of Bern offers more than 150 undergraduate degrees, master's and doctorate degree in various fields, through eight faculties, including those of Human Sciences. With more than 19.000 students, is the third largest university in Switzerland.

In the Institute of Sports Sciences, this is conceived as an interdisciplinary theme. Research interest focuses on the social and behavioral aspects of sport and exercise in various fields of practice., including the school, leisure and health, and competition.

The Institute of Sports Sciences has created the Sensorimotor Laboratory, an infrastructure designed to provide unique insights into perceptual and human motor behavior in complex naturalistic environments.

“since 2015, we have been developing a virtual reality infrastructure aimed specifically at the study of human motor behavior in sport and exercise”, explains Ralf Kredel, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Sports Sciences, University of Bern. “The University of Bern has many students who master sport, which allows us to closely follow and study the motor behavior of the elite while practicing sports or exercising in our Sensorimotor Laboratory”.

The Institute of Sports Sciences uses the Sensorimotor Laboratory to investigate human motor behavior from a basic scientific perspective and explain the phenomena that manifest themselves in applied sport..

"Sports associations and athletes come to us with individual and unique questions., to which we try to respond using our equipment and technological resources. As researchers, we are interested in understanding the general mechanisms behind these specific problems.", adds Kredel.

The Sensorimotor Laboratory of the University of Bern contains a cave (automatic virtual environment per computer), which includes tracking the movement of the whole body, the integrated mobile eyepiece, the spatial representation of sound and twelve high-resolution projectors to provide an immersive visual environment on the walls and floor of the great hall.

Initially introduced in 2015, the cave of the University of Bern was driven by a software of its own development for the mixing and deformation of the projection and visualization of contents.

“After, we integrate Scalable Display Technologies to mix the image between multiple projectors in the Sensorimotor Laboratory”, kredel clarifies. “before, we used our own development software to manually calibrate the projection. We hired a programmer who created a custom concept to handle the cave, that we used for three years. Even so, we wanted to find a more effective way to produce and manage content”.

Scalable met all requirements. They needed a system that streamlined the day-to-day operations of the cave service., "since I am currently the only person who maintains, develops and manages content. I have very limited time for service operations and was looking for a highly automated solution. Its one-touch calibration is ideal for us because it reduces downtime for maintenance and, often, it's simple enough for anyone on site to do the recalibration on their own”, says Kredel

Scalable software automatically shapes and combines multiple projectors on one screen seamlessly. Enables the University of Bern to create a reliable and interactive solution.

“Scalable's software has allowed us to streamline the calibration process and interact more closely with video technology in the Sensorimotor Laboratory. Our cave is unique because we encourage people to physically interact with it.", kredel points out.

Integration with Scalable was a success at all levels. The Sensorimotor Laboratory supports many new possibilities for research and postgraduate students at the University of Bern. Allows PhD and Master's students to create interactive content on their own and modify their properties at runtime. It takes complex sports or everyday activities and makes them more accessible to research. Opens the door to a whole new area of research for sports science.

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