By Jonathan Tolman
BYU students and faculty are giving the world a chance to experience the thrill of Olympic competition without ever stepping onto the slopes.
'About five years ago, we had a vision,' said Bill Barrett, professor of computer engineering. 'We had a vision of a virtual Olympics.'
The Virtual Olympics is a 3-D simulation of several Olympic events, including bobsled, luge, skeleton, curling, snowboarding, speed skating and most of the ski events.
'It gives spectators a better understanding of the courses, of what an actual athlete goes through. It will make (the spectator''s) experience more enjoyable,' said Grant Madsen from University Communications.
These 3-D animations are being shown on the gigantic 'Jumbotron' television screens outside the Olympic events in Salt Lake City. Spectators are only able to see a small section of the real luge track or downhill ski slope at a time. Through these simulations, the public can visualize the entire event and know which part of the race they witnessed.
Many of the students involved with the project toured the Olympic venues while they were still being constructed to help them map out and configure the data. Andrew Jorgensen, 24, a senior from Provo majoring in computer science, was impressed with the 120-meter ski jump.
'It''s a lot safer when we do it in here, though,' Jorgensen said. 'It hurts a lot less.'
The process of creating a virtual terrain is a complicated one, said Chris Witt, 22, a senior from Mission Viejo, Calif., majoring in computer engineering.
'We started out with 50,000 polygons to map out the luge track,' Witt said. 'That number had to be reduced to about 9,000 in order to make the program manageable on a PC.'
'The thing that''s great about students is that they don''t know it can''t be done, so they just go ahead and do it anyway,' Barrett said. 'To see that kind of creative energy come together to make something like this come to pass, it''s really been an exciting thing.
'This gives these students an education that they wouldn''t get in classroom or anywhere else,' he said.
This programming has three potential uses. One is the traditional use of computer graphics to represent what''s happening and see it on screen. The second is to educate the audience. The audience is able to see the events and understand them on a new level. Finally, there is also potential for this type of program to be used in athletic training, Barrett said.
'You could take this information and show it to people that are training, then they could use it to analyze their performance,' said Scott Hunter, a freelance animator from Provo. Hunter has worked for Acclaim making video games and came to BYU when he heard about the Virtual Olympics project.
In a demonstration, Hunter estimated and reproduced the paths of American downhill favorite Daron Rahlves and gold medalist Fritz Strobl. The animation showed that Rahlves'' decision at a critical turn might have added seconds and taken Riles out of medal contention.
The project is currently funded by Adobe, a software company that integrates the programming into their own graphics programs, Barrett said.