3D-Stereoscopic Immersive Analytics Projects at Monash University and University of Konstanz

Immersive Analytics investigates how novel interaction and display technologies may support analytical reasoning and decision making. The Immersive Analytics initiative of Monash University started early 2014. Over the last few years, a number of projects have been developed or extended in this context to meet the requirements of semi- or full-immersive stereoscopic environments. Different technologies are used for this purpose: CAVE2™ (a 330 degree large-scale visualization environment which can be used for educative and scientific group presentations, analyses and discussions), stereoscopic Powerwalls (miniCAVEs, representing a segment of the CAVE2 and used for development and communication), Fishtanks, and/or HMDs (such as Oculus, VIVE, and mobile HMD approaches). Apart from CAVE2™ all systems are or will be employed on both the Monash University and the University of Konstanz side, especially to investigate collaborative Immersive Analytics. In addition, sensiLab extends most of the previous approaches by involving all senses, 3D visualization is combined with multi-sensory feedback, 3D printing, robotics in a scientific-artistic-creative environment

Future Directions in Astronomy Visualisation

Despite the large budgets spent annually on astronomical research equipment such as telescopes, instruments and supercomputers, the general trend is to analyse and view the resulting datasets using small, two-dimensional displays. We report here on alternative advanced image displays, with an emphasis on displays that we have constructed, including stereoscopic projection, multiple projector tiled displays and a digital dome. These displays can provide astronomers with new ways of exploring the terabyte and petabyte datasets that are now regularly being produced from all-sky surveys, high-resolution computer simulations, and Virtual Observatory projects. We also present a summary of the Advanced Image Displays for Astronomy (AIDA) survey which we conducted from March-May 2005, in order to raise some issues pertitent to the current and future level of use of advanced image displays.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in PAS

SlicerAstro: a 3-D interactive visual analytics tool for HI data

SKA precursors are capable of detecting hundreds of galaxies in HI in a single 12 hours pointing. In deeper surveys one will probe more easily faint HI structures, typically located in the vicinity of galaxies, such as tails, filaments, and extraplanar gas. The importance of interactive visualization has proven to be fundamental for the exploration of such data as it helps users to receive immediate feedback when manipulating the data. We have developed SlicerAstro, a 3-D interactive viewer with new analysis capabilities, based on traditional 2-D input/output hardware. These capabilities enhance the data inspection, allowing faster analysis of complex sources than with traditional tools. SlicerAstro is an open-source extension of 3DSlicer, a multi-platform open source software package for visualization and medical image processing. We demonstrate the capabilities of the current stable binary release of SlicerAstro, which offers the following features: i) handling of FITS files and astronomical coordinate systems; ii) coupled 2-D/3-D visualization; iii) interactive filtering; iv) interactive 3-D masking; v) and interactive 3-D modeling. In addition, SlicerAstro has been designed with a strong, stable and modular C++ core, and its classes are also accessible via Python scripting, allowing great flexibility for user-customized visualization and analysis tasks.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, Accepted by Astronomy and Computing. SlicerAstro link: https://github.com/Punzo/SlicerAstro/wiki#get-slicerastr

Exploring and interrogating astrophysical data in virtual reality

Scientists across all disciplines increasingly rely on machine learning algorithms to analyse and sort datasets of ever increasing volume and complexity. Although trends and outliers are easily extracted, careful and close inspection will still be necessary to explore and disentangle detailed behaviour, as well as identify systematics and false positives. We must therefore incorporate new technologies to facilitate scientific analysis and exploration. Astrophysical data is inherently multi-parameter, with the spatial-kinematic dimensions at the core of observations and simulations. The arrival of mainstream virtual-reality (VR) headsets and increased GPU power, as well as the availability of versatile development tools for video games, has enabled scientists to deploy such technology to effectively interrogate and interact with complex data. In this paper we present development and results from custom-built interactive VR tools, called the iDaVIE suite, that are informed and driven by research on galaxy evolution, cosmic large-scale structure, galaxy–galaxy interactions, and gas/kinematics of nearby galaxies in survey and targeted observations. In the new era of Big Data ushered in by major facilities such as the SKA and LSST that render past analysis and refinement methods highly constrained, we believe that a paradigm shift to new software, technology and methods that exploit the power of visual perception, will play an increasingly important role in bridging the gap between statistical metrics and new discovery. We have released a beta version of the iDaVIE software system that is free and open to the community