In the tradition of the original CAVE, the name NAVE is a recursive acronym which stands for NAVE Automatic Virtual Environment. The name also has an architectural context, a nave is the main central part of a cruciform church building, designed to focus a person's attention both upward and into the structure. NAVE can also be an acronym that summarizes its primary objective (Non-expensive Automatic Virtual Environment).

As demonstrated by the popularity of the CAVE and the Virtual Workbench products, there is a great amount of interest in projected stereoscopic environments as an alternative to head-mounted displays. One of the primary obstacles to their widespread use has been cost.

The development goal of the NAVE project is to create a low-cost, PC-driven, multi-screen, multi-user, stereoscopic, multi-sensory virtual environment that preserves many of the desirable elements of the original CAVE environment but that can be built at a fraction of the cost of a CAVE. Our current prototype was built at a total hardware cost of approximately $60K, including projectors, screens, audio, computers, and lumber!

The current NAVE design is a three screen environment. Each screen is eight feet wide by six feet in height. The two side screens are positioned at 120 degree angles to the main central screen to give a three-sided display area that is sixteen feet wide and approximately seven feet deep. Imagery for each screen is generated on a 500 MHz PC and backprojected in stereo. A fourth PC is used to coordinate the three screens, and to provide audio output. The user experiences the NAVE while seated in a Thunderseat wearing passive stereo glasses. Software support for the NAVE is based on the Simple Virtual Environments (SVE) Toolkit.