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Fakespace Industry Interview Summary

November 29, 2004
Interview with Boone Oshel

History of Fakespace

The information below is taken from the Fakespace website: www.fakespace.com

Company Profile: Fakespace – providing complete, advanced interactive visualization solutions for industry, government & education.

With over 600 installations throughout the world, Fakespace Systems is the leader in the development and deployment of interactive, advanced visualization solutions. This means that more companies and institutions have chosen Fakespace than any other provider. More facilities have trusted our experience and leadership to provide them the right solution.

Advanced visualization systems are more than computers, software and projector components - they are complex, integrated solutions. Knowledge and expertise is key in developing and recommending the right solution. The Fakespace team is comprised of the widest range of industry and technology experts in the world today. Only Fakespace offers experts in visualization technology and workflow solutions including:

• visualization technologies
• computing platforms
• operating systems
• system integration
• projection technologies
• software development
• middleware development
• project management
• facility coordination
• interaction
• consulting
• training
• post-sale support and services

Company Information from Interview

Fakespace designs VR systems and visualization systems for clients. The systems have the possibility of being stereoscopic in nature or mono; they don’t necessarily have to deal with an immersive environment. They facilitate different types of immersive environments by doing different types of input devices, different types of stereo, etc. They use three dimensional CAD software and similar software to develop the systems. They show demonstrations of the systems, recreations in stereo for clients to view and to demonstrate the power of the systems.

They use VR as a sales tool. Boone described it as, “One of the driving forces for our company. Some of our systems aren’t driven with VR but a lot of our high-end systems are based around the client’s need to see their data sets in a virtual environment.”

Skills Needed in Employees

Boone mentioned several skills including: the ability to learn quickly. He explained that many of their systems are not “out of the box” and that a person needs to be able to use systems they have never seen before. Clients use different platforms and operating systems, so he explained that individuals need to understand different systems, hardware, software, programming, and applications.

In addition, he explained that individuals need to have good communication skills. He explained that often interactions with clients are due to problems or difficulties with the system, which requires strong communication skills.

Many of the systems are in remote locations, so individuals need to be able to visualize and remember a system in order to talk the on-site contact person through the solution.

We asked Boone to identify skills that colleges could target in an effort to better prepare individuals for the workforce. He stated that it is important to give individuals experience in managing projects. He also indicated that it is important to have experience in a team or a multi-person atmosphere on a project ¾ “If you have a client blow up at you or a teammate blow up on you, how will you handle it? You might have the technical knowledge that is a complete genius but you can’t handle a tough situation with the client, and that’s very important to be able to do.” Another skill that he listed is the ability to follow projects through and to provide solid documentation on a project ¾ “My group comes in and sets up all of the electronics, the videos, the computers, and works with the client to make sure all their systems run and all their applications run correctly….So having the documentation of how all that was set out and keeping that documentation as you’re going through. It’s a really important feature.” He also explained that service groups or other Fakespace employees (ones who did not set up the system) may need to service the system. This requires strong documentation in order to pass on knowledge of the system. Technical writing was a final skill that he listed as important for employees to possess.

What do companies look for in future employees

I look for people with a lot of experience- you can get a lot of experience in college.

The degree that I like to look at is Computer E because they have the cross-culture of programming algorithms, hardware, level-programming, they also have the electronics background as well as they have some theory behind the fundamentals of electronics….You have to know how to use a logic analyzer, which a person in a Com Sci field doesn’t get, somebody in the EE field might get, but that’s not going to be their main focus.

I would also recommend some mathematics courses in matrices. That’s a very big thing and very helpful when you’re doing programming, knowing how to work matrices so that you can do them, even if you’re not programming them. If you’re setting up our systems, you have to know how to rotate and re-rotate coordinate systems using different types of matrices to get other people’s applications to work with tracking systems.

Changes in the Future Use of Virtual Reality

I see VR being a lot more spread out, meaning that it’s not necessarily only used for high-end design as it is right now a lot of the times. [Currently] it’s used for high-end design and large data set and volume visualization…The spread is going to happen [as] the equipment becomes a lot cheaper, when the systems can be distributed to a large set of people, meaning more robustness on the systems. Right now all of the equipment that you use in VR systems is very fragile, a pair of stereo glasses is an exorbitant amount of money, just for one pair, unless you get passive glasses, which are a lot cheaper, but don’t give you as good of experience. When that robustness enters into the system, you’ll have high schools and elementary schools getting into it.

The field will grow and you’ll also be able to see a lot more demand for it because people will be experienced in it. But you’ll also see a grow in the type of areas that it’s in because somebody will say, “Well, why can’t we use that in this type of field.” Right now a lot of the holdback in some of the fields is due to standards. Like medical, there is no standardization between different types of CAT scan system; each CAT scan system has its own software for viewing it. So, all the models that that system creates can’t be propagated to a general reader. You can’t go to just some machine with a data file and say let’s look at it. It’s special software for that system.

He also talked about the benefits of using visualization technology for applications such as geophysics and drilling applications.

Employee Training

They have had internal projects where each of us picks a certain aspect of the visualization system, such as mirrors, and you come back after you’ve learned about the mirror and done some research on it and you spread what you’ve learned.

There are other situations where they have training on companies’ products that they purchase (e.g., control systems program training). He also mentioned general programming, machines, MCSE is a plus or being an SGI certified technician. I’ve been to everything from audio mixer training to training on how to run control systems and all different kinds of things….so, different programming, different types of programming like C Sharp Visual Literacy Plus Plus. A lot of that stuff I learned in college, open GL, but I left college four and a half…five years ago. Now the only place to learn is to get into it myself and learn it on my own so we have to keep people trained on that kind of stuff. Every time we go to shows, conferences, and shows, there’s courses you can take at shows, even walking the floors at the shows, you’re able to talk to people and learn more about the different types of systems and different types of equipment that we can put in our systems. Even at times, learn more about the equipment that we already use.

Partnerships