By Thomas Gnau

Staff Writer

DAYTON — Guests to the University of Dayton’s new IDCAST office Monday, Aug. 31, didn’t need IDCAST’s giant 48-megapixel wall monitor to see that something big was happening.

The unmanned aerial vehicle swooping down after the ribbon-cutting at the Tech Town business park was a clue that many felt this was a special day.

IDCAST — the Institute for the Development and Commercialization of Advanced Sensor Technology — is the anchor tenant in Tech Town’s first building, the 42,000-square-foot Creative Technology Accelerator, northeast of Monument Avenue and Taylor Street.

The juxtaposition was hard to miss. As the doors to the accelerator opened, a now-vacant Delphi-Harrison building was being demolished a few hundred yards to the north.

“If you look at that building,” said Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, pointing to the former Harrison structure, “and that building,” he added, referring to the accelerator, “you see the perfect vision for what’s happening in our economy.”

Inside the accelerator, the difference was even more pronounced. There, IDCAST showed off some of its camera and sensor technology on computer monitors and big screens.

Inside, Blair Barbour, president of Huntsville, Ala.-based Photon-X, talked about his company’s facial recognition optic technology. Kevin Klawon, of Dayton firm i23D, showed viewers a camera that helps build computer three-dimensional images. And Xenia’s Persistent Surveillance Systems displayed its ground-based surveillance systems.

Since early 2007, IDCAST has helped create some 250 jobs, said Larrell Walters, the institute’s director.

“We’ve done a lot of things that universities don’t usually do,” Walters said.

IDCAST will continue to operate two other locations, on Second Street and on the UD campus. Also in the accelerator are offices for the Dayton RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Convergence Center and Weston Solutions Inc.

A groundbreaking for the second of 10 planned Tech Town buildings is slated for next spring.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.