Halfway through the semester, we reached an important milestone: Halves Presentation. While our team has been deeply focused on development, this was our moment to step back, reflect on our progress, and effectively communicate our work to the broader ETC community.
CAVERN development is highly technical, and much of our work happens under the hood—through rendering optimizations, tracking solutions, and workflow improvements. This presentation was an opportunity to not just showcase the toolkit itself, but also highlight the problem-solving process behind it.
Beyond the presentation itself, this week also included two major public demos—one at the ETC CAVERN Showcase, where students and faculty could experience Spelunx firsthand, and another at South Fayette High School, where we introduced K-12 STEAM teachers to CAVERN and refined the student onboarding experience.
And, of course, we ended the week with a celebratory brunch, marking an exciting half-semester of progress!
Final Refinements – Preparing for Halves
With Halves on Wednesday, we dedicated the first half of the week to finalizing documentation and refining our presentation. A key priority was ensuring that our technical work was not only well-structured for future developers but also clearly explainable to a general audience.
Documenting the Camera – A Mathematical Guide for Future Developers
One of the most significant additions this week was a formal mathematical documentation of the CAVERN camera system.
Since CAVERN uses stereoscopic projection on a curved screen, traditional rendering approaches don’t work out-of-the-box. While we had successfully developed a single-camera rendering pipeline to replace previous inefficient multi-camera solutions, we realized that future developers would struggle to modify or expand upon our work without a clear mathematical breakdown.
To address this, we documented:
- How projection from a single camera to a curved screen is achieved.
- The transformations involved in mapping the 3D scene onto CAVERN’s display.
- How developers can modify camera parameters if the CAVERN setup changes.
Toolkit Usage Diagrams – Bridging the Gap for New Users
In addition to the camera documentation, we also created diagrams and structured guides to make our toolkit more accessible for non-programmers.
Since Spelunx is intended for a range of users—from experienced Unity developers to high school students exploring immersive media for the first time, we needed to ensure that our documentation was clear, visual, and easy to follow.
By refining these materials before Halves, we ensured that we were not just delivering a working toolkit, but also providing the resources needed to make it usable and expandable.
Halves Presentation and CAVERN Showcase
On Wednesday, we presented our progress to faculty, peers, and members of the broader ETC community. The response was overwhelmingly positive—people were excited to see how Spelunx was making CAVERN development more accessible, and many were interested in experimenting with the toolkit themselves.
However, while slides and videos were useful for explaining our process, CAVERN is a space that must be experienced firsthand to be fully appreciated. For this reason, we extended an open invitation to faculty and students to visit the ETC CAVERN Showcase on Thursday, where they could:
- Experience our sample scene in full stereoscopic 3D.
- Try out interactions from CAVERN Jam projects.
- See how different depth cues, motion, and sound work in an immersive space.
Key Feedback from the Showcase
As attendees explored the space, we gathered valuable insights into how people perceive and engage with CAVERN environments:
- The 3D effect was highly convincing, making the screen “disappear.” This reinforced that our sample scene’s depth and spatial design were effective.
- Horizon alignment felt slightly off in some scenes. This is something we will refine in upcoming iterations.
- People were drawn to more dynamic, reactive interactions. Suggestions included having objects respond to player presence, using subtle movements to enhance immersion.
- Ambience and atmosphere were strong, but directional sound could be showcased better. Now that surround sound is properly configured, we plan to incorporate more layered audio interactions in future updates.
South Fayette Visit – Introducing CAVERN to Educators
On Friday, we visited South Fayette High School for the second time—this time, not just to engage with students, but to introduce CAVERN to K-12 STEAM teachers.
Bringing CAVERN to the Classroom
Our goal was to demonstrate how immersive environments can be integrated into education and to help teachers understand the process of creating interactive experiences in CAVERN.
During the session, we showcased:
- The fundamentals of CAVERN as an interactive space.
- How students can use Spelunx to quickly develop and test ideas.
- Examples from CAVERN Jam that illustrated creative interaction design.
The response was enthusiastic—many teachers saw potential applications in storytelling, science visualization, and interactive learning.
Hands-On Debugging and Support for Students
After the demo, we worked closely with Stacey and her students to provide technical guidance on working with CAVERN.
- We walked Stacey through the full process of importing Unity packages, setting up scenes, and configuring CAVERN’s display.
- We debugged a Blender-to-Unity 6 issue, ensuring that students could properly import 3D models into their projects.
This session reinforced that beyond just providing a toolkit, our role is also about empowering future creators—ensuring that educators and students feel confident using these tools independently.
Celebrating Our Half-Semester Milestone
After an intense week of presenting, testing, and refining, we took a well-deserved break with a celebratory brunch in Shadyside. It was a moment to appreciate how far we had come—from our initial pitch to a fully functional toolkit, a successful game jam, and multiple real-world demos.
But this was just the halfway point. Looking ahead, we are preparing to:
- Refine interactions and dynamic responsiveness based on showcase feedback.
- Continue working with South Fayette to ensure successful student projects.
- Explore advanced features, including potential support for additional tracking methods beyond Vive Trackers.
Week 7 was about sharing our work with the world—now, we move forward with clear next steps and renewed energy.