If you want to build a HIPerWall, there are two major approaches: 1) The commercially available Samsung UD approach; and 2) build-your-own hardware. This write-up will help you decide which is appropriate for you, what components you need, and how to configure them.

The choice of which approach to take depends on your planned usage scenario and how much you want a turnkey system. If you want the very highest resolution, plan to view objects from within a meter or two from the monitors, or need the most control over the exact specifications of your hardware (including the ability to use Macs), you should build your own system. If you plan to view the system from a few meters or more, want very bright, thin-bezel displays, and the easiest physical setup, the Samsung UD approach is for you.

Both the conventional (standalone) HIPerWall software and the Samsung UD software have the same capabilities. Some software runs on each of the display computers and talks to a control system. A user-friendly user interface runs on the control system. It allows you to import data into the wall, choose objects to display, move them around, see and manipulate the characteristics of the objects, and save and load “environments” (collections of objects that you want to show up in the same place each time you load the environment). You can show various types of objects on HIPerWall systems, including images (JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF), large images (how does a billion pixels sound?), movies (QuickTime with more formats coming), and real-time streaming video. You can also run our special HiperSender software on your laptop or other PC and show its screen on your HIPerWall (this capability supports many such senders per system, enabling collaboration among colleagues and viewing proprietary applications on HIPerWall systems).

Either system building approach needs some hardware in addition to the displays (and display computers in the non-Samsung UD case). You need a control system, which should be a powerful multiprocessor (multicore) system. If you choose the Samsung UD option, this machine must run Windows (XP or Vista), while the standalone option means you should choose the same sort of system as your display computer s (Mac if you’re using Macs, Windows if you’re using PCs). You also need a Gigabit network switch large enough for all your display systems, your control node, and a few more. Don’t skimp on the switch. Good GigE switches are worth the money. We use managed Nortel and SMC switches on HIPerWall and they work well. Make sure you get full bisection bandwidth, good multicast support, and the ability to turn off packet storm filtering (sometimes the switches think our legitimate communications are packet storm attacks, so you need to turn that off). If you want to stream video, you need machines with attached webcams or Blackmagic Intensity Pro cards to capture HD video. Finally, if you want to use HiperSenders, you need network ports and cables to plug them in. If you want external networking, get a router capable of handling GigE traffic on the LAN side (many cheap home routers can’t do this and will bog down the whole network even when no Internet traffic is needed).

If you choose the Samsung UD approach, this is easy. Each monitor has a self-contained computer running the Samsung MagicInfo software and the Samsung UD software (the HIPerWall software customized for Samsung). The monitors have an amazing self-mounting system that allows you to simply and quickly mount them on free-standing bases to build a wall in a couple of hours rather than days or weeks. We built a 4 high by 8 wide display wall in about 3 hours. Stack the Samsung UD monitors on the pedestals, tighten the screws on the mounting posts, connect power and GigE. Using MagicInfo and VNC, connect to each node and rename it to fit the HIPerWall display scheme (A1 is top left, B1 is next to it, while A2 is below it). Once that is done, use MagicInfo to switch the entire system into Samsung UD mode, launch our Samsung UD control software on your control system, and start importing objects. Once your system is configured, our software can shut down and start the display nodes, so you shouldn’t need to squeeze behind your wall very often.

If you choose to build your own system out of components, you need computers and monitors. We recommend one computer per monitor for performance and configuration reasons. While many computers and video cards can drive multiple monitors, performance suffers, particularly for applications that span the monitors, so avoid it. Your display nodes should have at least two processors, GigE, a couple GB of RAM, and a good video card with its own memory (avoid embedded graphics processors that share system memory – they work, but have a performance penalty). You also need to deal with mounting the displays. We had a custom frame made that uses the VESA mounts for the Apple 30” Cinema Displays, but it was difficult to align and cost about $10K. We saw skilled carpenters hard mount 18 such displays very nicely at Apple’s WWDC in 2005 in just a couple hours, so that may be a better approach unless you need portability. As above, name the systems A1 on the top left, with B1 next to it, etc. If you choose Macs, get Apple Remote Desktop, a wonderful tool that allows you to manage multiple machines very nicely. I would suggest getting Mac Pros because that gives the most flexibility to run Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux. Under Mac OS X or Linux, you can also run another tiled display software, CGLX, that started at UCI and is currently being developed by our colleagues at UCSD. On the other hand, you can buy several nice PCs for the cost of a Mac Pro…

If you choose the Samsung UD approach, the software is included with the display systems. If you are a UC researcher, contact us and we’ll work something out. Otherwise, contact Hiperwall, Inc. for the commercial Windows or Mac OS X version.