Multi-touch 3D Exploratory Analysis of Ocean Flow Models

Modern ocean flow simulations are generating increasingly complex, multi-layer 3D ocean flow models. However, most researchers are still using traditional 2D visualizations to visualize these models one slice at a time. Properly designed 3D visualization tools can be highly effective for revealing the complex, dynamic flow patterns and structures present in these models. However, the transition from visualizing ocean flow patterns in 2D to 3D presents many challenges, including occlusion and depth ambiguity. Further complications arise from the interaction methods required to navigate, explore, and interact with these 3D datasets. We present a system that employs a combination of stereoscopic rendering, to best reveal and illustrate 3D structures and patterns, and multi-touch interaction, to allow for natural and efficient navigation and manipulation within the 3D environment. Exploratory visual analysis is facilitated through the use of a highly-interactive toolset which leverages a smart particle system. Multi-touch gestures allow users to quickly position dye emitting tools within the 3D model. Finally, we illustrate the potential applications of our system through examples of real world significance

Big Data in HEP: A comprehensive use case study

Experimental Particle Physics has been at the forefront of analyzing the worlds largest datasets for decades. The HEP community was the first to develop suitable software and computing tools for this task. In recent times, new toolkits and systems collectively called Big Data technologies have emerged to support the analysis of Petabyte and Exabyte datasets in industry. While the principles of data analysis in HEP have not changed (filtering and transforming experiment-specific data formats), these new technologies use different approaches and promise a fresh look at analysis of very large datasets and could potentially reduce the time-to-physics with increased interactivity. In this talk, we present an active LHC Run 2 analysis, searching for dark matter with the CMS detector, as a testbed for Big Data technologies. We directly compare the traditional NTuple-based analysis with an equivalent analysis using Apache Spark on the Hadoop ecosystem and beyond. In both cases, we start the analysis with the official experiment data formats and produce publication physics plots. We will discuss advantages and disadvantages of each approach and give an outlook on further studies needed.Comment: Proceedings for 22nd International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP 2016

HTC Scientific Computing in a Distributed Cloud Environment

This paper describes the use of a distributed cloud computing system for high-throughput computing (HTC) scientific applications. The distributed cloud computing system is composed of a number of separate Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) clouds that are utilized in a unified infrastructure. The distributed cloud has been in production-quality operation for two years with approximately 500,000 completed jobs where a typical workload has 500 simultaneous embarrassingly-parallel jobs that run for approximately 12 hours. We review the design and implementation of the system which is based on pre-existing components and a number of custom components. We discuss the operation of the system, and describe our plans for the expansion to more sites and increased computing capacity

Genera Esfera: Interacting with a trackball mapped onto a sphere to explore generative visual worlds

Genera Esfera is an interactive installation that allows the audience to interact and easily become a VJ (visual DJ) in a world of generative visuals. It is an animated and generative graphic environment with a music playlist, a visual spherical world related with and suggested by the music, which reacts and evolves. The installation has been presented at MIRA Live Visual Arts Festival 2015, in Barcelona. Genera Esfera was envisioned, developed and programmed on the basis of two initial ideas: first, to generate our spherical planets we need to work with spherical geometry and program 3D graphics; second, the interaction should be easy to understand, proposing a direct mapping between the visuals and the interface. Our main goal is that participants can focus on exploring the graphic worlds rather than concentrate on understanding the interface. For that purpose we use a trackball to map its position onto sphere rotations. In this paper, we present the interactive installation Genera Esfera, the design guidelines, the mathematics behind the generative visuals and its results.Postprint (published version