May 06, 2010 –
The Hiperwall Inc. display in the CALIT2 atrium drew visitors to watch a multimedia production about free speech.
As the moving walkway whisks them though the terminal at Belgium’s Brussels National Airport, travelers wave and gesture at brightly colored renderings of themselves on a 48-ft.-wide display wall. The images wave and gesture back from the bank of monitors mounted next to the human conveyor system.
The moving diorama is not meant for entertainment alone. Instead, infrared sensors are measuring the travelers’ body temperatures to detect illness, and are streaming the information to the airport’s Hiperwall-based system, where the data is transformed into a compelling, interactive display.
The visitors probably don’t know that the software driving the engaging exhibit is the result of academic research conducted thousands of miles away, at UC Irvine.
Hiperwall Inc., launched in 2008, is a spinoff company that grew out of NSF-funded visualization research conducted in the CALIT2 Building. The company produces a software system that converts a set of standard computer monitors into an ultra-high resolution display wall. The displays, which can range from 4 monitors to 80 or more, are capable of showing simultaneously high-resolution images, HD video, HD streaming content and PC applications in a variety of sizes and presentations.
From Research to Result
The original HIPerWall (Highly Interactive Parallelized Display Wall) project is a room-sized, 50-monitor, grid-based display that transforms massive data sets into stunning visualizations at a 200-million-pixel resolution. That is 100 times the resolution of state-of-the-art high-definition television.
It can display one extremely large image in great detail or many smaller images, as well as streaming video and 3D models that can be moved, resized, layered and otherwise manipulated from a control node.
Since it debuted in 2005, HIPerWall has facilitated collaborative research on topics ranging from neurobiology to climate simulations to emergency management.
Once operational, the dramatic display quickly became a must-see destination for visitors to the CALIT2 Building.
“From day one, everyone who saw HIPerWall asked, ‘How do we get one?’” says Steve Jenks, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and Hiperwall Inc. co-founder. Jenks, who developed much of the software that controls the advanced distributed-computing and rendering techniques, says that at the time, adapting the system for outside users was a complex process that required a lot of custom coding. “We had a team to do the coding for interested UCI researchers but we really didn’t want to become tech support for everyone else.”
From left, Kim, Jenks and Greenberg incubated Hiperwall Inc. in the CALIT2 Visualization Lab. (photo: Paul Kennedy)
Timing is Everything At around the same time, UCI computer science alumnus Jeff Greenberg contacted his alma mater to volunteer his services. “I just wanted to get involved with the university again,” says Greenberg, who, coincidentally, had years of technology-company startup experience under his belt. Instead of being asked to help with fundraising or membership drives as he expected, he was introduced to the Office of Technology Alliances, which, he learned, was on a quest to transform university technology into viable companies.
That introduction eventually led Greenberg to form Tech Coast Works, an incubator entity through which he would help UCI researchers commercialize their inventions.
His first stop: HIPerWall. “Jeff saw our technology and thought it was worth productizing,” Jenks says.
Greenberg worked with Jenks and postdoctoral researcher Sung-Jin Kim, Hiperwall Inc. co-founder, on making the software more user-friendly. He guided them through the maze of required paperwork: disclosures, licenses and other agreements, and also negotiated a distribution deal with consumer electronics giant Samsung.
Hiperwall Inc. (the spelling was changed to differentiate it from the original HIPerWall) produces a software system that uses “sender” technology and a user-friendly interface to transfer data from any laptop or desktop PC directly to Hiperwall monitors, which are easily installed in any configuration.
“We can take the output from any PC and put it up on the wall,” Jenks says. “The user just installs a little program to make it work, and that made it commercially viable. You plug your PC right into the network and you’re done.”
Worldwide Success
The system is hardware-agnostic – it can be used with LCD, plasma, CRT or rear-projection displays and an ordinary Ethernet network – giving it hundreds of possible applications: command-and-control rooms at government, military, utility and transportation installations; trading floors; medical/scientific imaging; education; aerial imaging and fleet management. Currently, it is installed in more than 100 locations around the world. Revenue is expected to top $1 million this year.
LaSierra University in Riverside, Calif. recently installed a 13-monitor Hiperwall system in a multi-purpose classroom. The result, says associate dean Nate Brandstater, is increased student collaboration and an enthusiastic classroom atmosphere. “Students are evolving from being passive spectators in class to being active learners to being quasi-instructors,” he says. “They are having a genuine dialogue …in which the material and solutions they are generating are becoming the focus of the classroom discussions.”
Other customers include the Western States Information Network, part of a nationwide complex that monitors the law-enforcement activities of multiple agencies, and Stanford University Medical School. A 12-screen version was used this month in the CALIT2 atrium to broadcast “Our Students Speak,” a multimedia production featuring UC Irvine students discussing the impact of free speech on their lives.
The largest Hiperwall installation to date is a two-story, 80-screen version in the offices of an overseas intelligence agency.
Incubation Inroads
From conception to first revenue, Hiperwall was commercialized in just one year. “We incubated the company at CALIT2 and that helped tremendously,” says Greenberg, who is now Hiperwall Inc.’s CEO and an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Paul Merage School of Business. “We had access to resources: a lab big enough to house a Hiperwall, and network and staff resources.”
The company continues to grow, setting up limited distribution partnerships with vendors who resell the software to their customers, including Ingram Micro Inc., the world’s largest technology distributor.
The partnership between inventors and incubators is keeping the wheels of innovation turning, says Greenberg. “An inventor or innovator comes up with technologies and makes really cool things work. An entrepreneur knows how to build a business out of an idea.”
Jenks and Kim successfully molded an academic proof-of-concept into a commercial-grade product.
“They made it stable, simple and gave it features that customers need,” Greenberg says. “And I have taken that product and figured out how to make a business out of it.”
Jenks enthusiastically concurs. “Having somebody who knew the ropes made it 10 times easier than it would have been otherwise.”
— Anna Lynn Spitzer
