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Scientific visualization activities in the Visualization
Portal are designed to display, in the best possible way for
the specific data involved, the
research data and interests of those UCLA researchers who are
working with Portal staff. Often the data are turned into
interactive models so that the data can be explored in a dynamic
and totally interactive way. UCLA researchers interested in
participating can contact the portal staff at rnd@ats.ucla.edu.
- Visualization Programs
- While the output of any scientific visualization program
can be displayed in the Visualization Portal, the following
programs are commonly used there:
VMD,
Vis5D,
OpenDX, and
AVS
Express. The
Visualization Toolkit (VTK) is sometimes used as an API.
Visualization Portal staff also provides general consulting
services to the campus in the use of visualization software.
- Scientific Visualization Models
- Scientists and engineers use scientific
visualization software to make images and visualizations from
scientific data. These visualization programs are not
designed for the navigation of virtual worlds. In the
Visualization Portal we take the geometry generated by
scientific visualization software and convert that geometry
into models for our vrNav program. vrNav can navigate
these models both in space, and, if there are multiple time
steps of the data as is often the case, in time.
OpenDX is a commonly used visualization software package.
Portal staff have written a program, dxToPfb, that converts
geometries created by OpenDX into models that can be navigated by vrNav.
It does this by converting the geometry created by OpenDX to Performer's native file
format, a format that vrNav can read. While the program only works on a limited set of
the geometry that OpenDX can produce, we have been been highly
sucessful in using this program to create navigatable models.
This software can be made available on request.
- Universe Model
- This is a model of the creation of the universe, galaxies and
clusters of galaxies, from an n-body simulation of dark matter
done by Professor Ben Moore, Institute of Theoretical Physics,
University of Zurich. Professor Matthew Malkan, UCLA
Department of Physics and Astronomy guided the visualization.
- Movies
- In the Visualization Portal scientific data is often
displayed in the form of movies. Movies are
especially revealing when used to display scientific
simulation data which normally includes multiple time
steps. Movies also allow you to rotate or transform and
object. Other
movies are made from the virtual world models. With
vrNav, the path that is taken through a model can be
recorded and a movie made later by having vrNav fly on that
path and snap images. Movies can include changes in
time as well as in space.
While any size or shape movie can be shown in the
Visualization Portal, movies that fill the Portal's
screen are usually made specifically for the Portal.
Stereo movies are popular with the non-technical
audiences that attend Portal events.
-
Paul Bourke's Stereo Movie Player
- Portal staff have made small modifications to
the excellent
stereo movie player that was written by
Professor Paul Bourke of Swinbourne University
in Australia. These modifications magnify the image
by the largest integer that will display a maximum
sized movie in the center of the Portal's screen.
Further modifications to this software distribute a
movie across the tiles of a
tiled display
of any size.
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