Stopping the flood

Inside the CAVE, virtually anything is possible.

It’s like Star Trek’s Holodeck. Or being in the Matrix.

Students Steven Beaudoin, Daniel Kehr and Sean Coffey in the CAVE.

Rowan University’s Cave Automatic Virtual Environment provides students and researchers a way of simulating almost anything – from shipboard fire control for the U.S. Navy to 3D imaging of the human body. It’s a room-sized computer environment in which users don’t just view images on a screen but interact with them.

The powers within the CAVE, which is housed in the Virtual Reality Lab within the South Jersey Technology Park on Rowan’s west campus, have been trained on a variety of projects since the machine was acquired in 2007. The CAVE was purchased with grants totalling roughly $800,000 from NASA, the Navy, and the National Science Foundation.

In 2009 Rowan students and researchers began using the CAVE to study topographic features and aging sewers in a flood-prone section of Camden, and are now using it to study a section of Vineland that often floods too. Ultimately, data collected in the field and modeled and analyzed in the CAVE will be used to mitigate flooding in both cities.

George Lecakes, a research associate who works with students in the VR lab, said the technology enables students from Rowan’s College of Engineering to do far more than they ever could on standard desktop computers.

“Whatever is in your imagination is possible in the CAVE,” said Lecakes, who holds a BS in civil and environmental engineering from Rowan as well as an MS in electrical and computer engineering from Rowan.

Work in Camden involves 50 square blocks in the Cramer Hill section while work in Vineland is focused at the intersection of Grant Avenue and S. East Boulevard.

In Camden, Lecakes said, a river once ran through the Von Neida Park area in Cramer Hill and the natural contour of the land still tries to drain through it. In addition, an old and faulty sewer system cannot keep up with heavy rainfall, especially during severe storms.

“The issue is that when it floods you don’t just have runoff, but waste, so there’s a health issue,” Lecakes said.

In Vineland, flooding is so bad near the Dr. William Mennies Elementary School that it must be closed sometimes.

Three students from Rowan’s Civil and Environmental Engineering program and six in the Electrical and Computer Engineering program are working on the two projects this year, conducting field surveys and processing information in the lab, Lecakes said.

Daniel Kehr, a senior CEE major, said students use GPS-enabled survey equipment in the field for pinpoint accuracy. Working in Vineland, he and two other CEE students are documenting how the land slopes and the data collected are used to illustrate water flow.

“It really brings the lessons home,” said Kehr, 22, of Florence. “This is real life. We’re going to help people.”

Steven Beaudoin, a graduate student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, said 3D modeling produced in the CAVE from field data is so clear and visual even non-engineers can understand it.

“You can show what the situation is like now and what it will be like after you make the changes,” said Beaudoin, 22, of Pitman. “It’s almost like watching a movie.”