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METATRON LASER IMAGING: SIMULATION FOR AIR FORCE AND OTHER GROUPS
The Air Force Research Lab is working with the Human Effectiveness Directorate for war training research. This group put out a call for civilian company support for building a laser projector with infinite depth of focus and very high resolution. Non-disclosure papers were signed and the Air force evaluated Troyer’s patented laser projector. The Air Force representative stated that the design and infinite focus worked and the projector’s open architecture allowed for their next step specifications for 4000 line resolution. He suggested that other projection technologies were limited in their architecture ability for the specifications sought. They were most interested in the IDF (infinite depth of focus) ability of the projector, which allows curved space for simulation.
The goal of simulation is to create a world as real as possible for the pilot training. Visual acuity has to be evaluated. How realistic are the visuals being generated? How are they captured? Thus there is a system integration of technologies around the infinite focus ability of the Metatron Imaging projector platform.
The Immersive space is a MetaShell playpen. Entertainment, teleprescence, medical, healing, instruction and training can use this simulation environment. IDF is possible because the coherence and polarization of the laser beam is kept throughout the system so that the image is in focus on any surface. This systems integration process is called Meta Dimensional Transfer Platform (MDT- P).
Diane Troyer is from a background in multi-media and Intermedia. She envisioned in the early 80’s what was to be called Virtual Reality (VR). She was most interested in immersive VR (audience immersed in the reality without wearing glasses). She realized that laser projection was the “missing link” after seeing a military projector built for the Air Force. She then started communicating with Colonel Poff, who was a main force behind the projector, and was in charge of the Strategic Air Command posts. He referred her to staff and also the projector’s manufacturing group. She got a contract to introduce the projector to the commercial world. She bought the 8 Air Force laser projectors that were mothballed before Desert Storm, because there was not enough room for battery back up underground. Greg Axtell was in charge of the TRW contract at the SAC and MAC bases and supported Troyer. Troyer was able to study the documentation of the design and implementation process in the development of the laser projectors for the TRW government contract. Troyer has spent the last eight years perfecting the laser projector technology. She created a break through and received a patent in Feb. 2001.
Prior to Metatron, Troyer produced and directed a feature film, television shows and multi media events, including a United Way money-raising extravaganza. She started MetaMedia, a non-profit company in Iowa that implemented innovative local programs based on the visual experience. Other states followed the United Action for Youth model for troubled teens with video cameras. This was the basis for the Public television series, Cornucopia, which she produced.
Troyer designed, built, and ran a multi-media performance nightclub where Muddy Waters and other greats often played. This club was a community center, where benefits took place for local needs. The hospital school for emotionally disturbed and autistic children played in the space once a week, where the colors, sound and light caused major break throughs for some of the children. The most pronounced was a 14-year-old autistic boy who started to move with the sound, colors, and pulsing light (his first reaction for years), proving to Troyer and staff the importance of an immersive space for healing.
Troyer also was instrumental and helped conceive and implement the Intermedia Alliance (Ford and Rockefeller Grants) to form the world’s first working interactive environments of synthesizers, lasers, video, computers and graphics. This innovative R & D became a Ph.D. program at the University of Iowa (the integration of technology and art). Troyer worked with International performance artists & writers in many television shows. She was accepted into the writer’s Graduate workshop as an undergraduate, Kurt Vonnegut her teacher.
Troyer’s background provides her the incentive and ability to develop the integration platform: MDT-P.