Thomas Jefferson University (TJU) had a clear vision for its new Gutman Library Advanced Media Center. No one department or discipline would be the sole beneficiary of its technology. The multi-functional immersive and VR environment needed to have campus-wide utility. For this, they needed computing power to accommodate any application.

In-depth discovery enabled Mechdyne to map out strategic objectives and a breadth of anticipated uses, but ever present in the design process was a clear imperative: how to accommodate use cases that had yet to be identified.

To this end, Mechdyne engaged Idaho-based Silverdraft Supercomputing to ensure the system had the computing power, scalability, and flexibility to embrace the unanticipated.

“Silverdraft was the natural partner for us on this project,” says Mechdyne General Manager Chad Kickbush. “Together we mapped out the challenges, and the opportunity we had to create a consistently excellent user experience across a vast range of use cases.”

In order to realize the vision for TJU, Mechdyne recognized Silverdraft’s ability to help solve tough visualization problems across industries, with a particular emphasis on liberating creatives, such as VRX artists, directors, and producers, from the constraints of subpar-performing hardware.

“Silverdraft’s purpose is to enable creators’ stream of consciousness,” says company founder and CEO Amy Gile. “You can’t wait for compute. That breaks creativity and interrupts workflow. You need a level of processing power that keeps up with your thinking [so that] your brain buys into what’s being visualized. If you’re in a virtual environment and frames are falling out or it’s not photo-real, your brain won’t believe any of it.”

That experience, contends Gile, “is critical not just to supporting users’ creativity, but really for them to be immersed in a way that they can make decisions based on what they’re seeing.”

Mechdyne partnered with Silverdraft to ensure the Advanced Media Center delivered actionable utility by removing all barriers to understanding. For Gile and Mechdyne Senior Solutions Architect Gary Quasebarth, the key lay in a design that delivered sustainably high performance with state-of-the-art computing efficiency and thermal management via an architecture capable of handling not just today’s data loads but tomorrow’s as well.

“People tend to look at compute as pieces and parts in a box,” says Gile. “That’s not what we do or are. We’re about the full solutions – what’s being done, the applications, the specific tasks, and then the quality and level of components that are being put in the systems.”

It’s important to note, adds Gile, that “Silverdraft is not an integrator. We look at the compute behind the solution, focusing on what’s driving the pieces so that we can optimize the best compute solution. Our partnership works because Mechdyne is highly knowledgeable. They have a strong understanding of what the client wants to achieve, and we come back with a recommended compute solution that integrates into that workflow.”

Close collaboration on solutions enables the client to maximize system productivity. Imagine a server that can virtualize multiple workstations or a workstation whose GPUs can run multiple headsets simultaneously during the day and work in unison as a rendering station in the evenings. Silverdraft brings the power and architecture necessary to achieve such tasks, while Mechdyne integrates those capabilities into the larger solution.

“When creating a complex high-performance extended reality environment (Hi-PerXR), with elements of virtual and other realities, it’s absolutely essential to keep the end user top of mind in every decision you make,” says Quasebarth. “Discovery and insight occur when the user truly feels transported into a new reality. For that to happen, you need to create an environment without glitches, interruptions, and other shortcomings that impede discovery and get in the way of thinking.”

Any laptop user who has seen their productivity plummet due to an overtaxed processor can relate. But virtual reality is an experience unto itself. The richness of the data, the immersive nature of the environment, and the need for true collaboration underscore the importance of providing a natural, intuitive user experience that advances understanding at the speed of consciousness.