The A-Desk: A Unified Workspace of the Future
Andrei State, Herman E. Towles, Tyler Johnson, Ryan Schubert, Brendan Walters, Greg Welch, Henry Fuchs · IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications · 2020
It is made from wood, projectors, and a computer running multiprojector blending software. Developed in 2008–2009 in response to an agency interest in future work environments for intelligence analysts, the immersive curved ADesk supports a variety of tasks, such as traditional office or development work, design, and even immersive telepresence. The authors discuss the A-Desk (“Analyst Desk”), a user-enveloping display system consisting of a bowl-shaped, two-dimensionally curved display and work surface. The A-Desk concept and working prototypes were developed after consultations with the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and with support from the U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) (Future Analyst Workspace (A-Desk), Principal Investigators Henry Fuchs and Greg Welch, U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Agency Number FA8750-08-2-0209, IARPA Analyst Workspace for Exploitation (A-SpaceX) Program, Program Manager Dr. Jeffrey G. Morrison). The ADesk aims to address these agencies’ need for innovative display technologies for use by analysts whose complex daily tasks include visualizing intelligence and surveillance data from multiple sources comprising different modalities, developing and managing hypotheses about past and future activities, scenarios, or events, and communicating such information to, as well as discussing and processing it with, collaborators.