Advisory Board

Dr. James H. Oliver

The Nanotechnology Group article Iowa State To Have The Most Realistic Virtual Reality Room in the World said

More than $4 million in equipment upgrades will shine 100 million pixels on Iowa State University’s six-sided virtual reality room. That’s twice the number of pixels lighting up any virtual reality room in the world and 16 times the pixels now projected on Iowa State’s C6, a 10-foot by 10-foot virtual reality room that surrounds users with computer-generated 3-D images. That means the C6 will produce virtual reality at the world’s highest resolution.
 
The difference between the equipment currently in the C6 and the updated technology to be installed this summer, “It’s like putting on your glasses in the morning,” said James Oliver, the director of Iowa State’s Virtual Reality Applications Center and a professor of mechanical engineering.

James H. Oliver, Ph.D., Professor of Mechanical Engineering, currently serves as Director of the Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC) and the Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) at Iowa State University.
 
His current research and economic development activities involve a wide array of human computer interaction technologies, encompassing computer graphics, geometric modeling, virtual reality, and collaborative networks for applications in product development and complex system operation.
 
Most recently, Jim served as Vice President of Product Development at Cognicity, Inc. a Twin-Cities startup focused on Internet-based entertainment marketing. Previously he headed product development for Engineering Animation Inc. (NASDAQ:EAII), where he led the creation of a unique Internet-based visual collaboration tool for supply chain integration. Before his industrial leave, he had a successful ten-year career as an engineering professor, where he conducted research, taught, and administered a center focused on industrial applications of computer graphics and virtual reality.
 
Jim earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State University in 1986. He holds three U.S. patents and is the recipient of numerous professional honors and awards including the 1999 Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers International. He is coauthor of Generalized Unstructured Decimation.