From Big Data to Big Displays: High-Performance Visualization at Blue Brain

Blue Brain has pushed high-performance visualization (HPV) to complement its HPC strategy since its inception in 2007. In 2011, this strategy has been accelerated to develop innovative visualization solutions through increased funding and strategic partnerships with other research institutions. We present the key elements of this HPV ecosystem, which integrates C++ visualization applications with novel collaborative display systems. We motivate how our strategy of transforming visualization engines into services enables a variety of use cases, not only for the integration with high-fidelity displays, but also to build service oriented architectures, to link into web applications and to provide remote services to Python applications.Comment: ISC 2017 Visualization at Scale worksho

Are tiled display walls needed for astronomy?

Clustering commodity displays into a Tiled Display Wall (TDW) provides a cost-effective way to create an extremely high resolution display, capable of approaching the image sizes now gen- erated by modern astronomical instruments. Astronomers face the challenge of inspecting single large images, many similar images simultaneously, and heterogeneous but related content. Many research institutions have constructed TDWs on the basis that they will improve the scientific outcomes of astronomical imagery. We test this concept by presenting sample images to astronomers and non- astronomers using a standard desktop display (SDD) and a TDW. These samples include standard English words, wide field galaxy surveys and nebulae mosaics from the Hubble telescope. These experiments show that TDWs provide a better environment for searching for small targets in large images than SDDs. It also shows that astronomers tend to be better at searching images for targets than non-astronomers, both groups are generally better when employing physical navigation as opposed to virtual navigation, and that the combination of two non-astronomers using a TDW rivals the experience of a single astronomer. However, there is also a large distribution in aptitude amongst the participants and the nature of the content also plays a significant role is success.Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in PASA (Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia

An Advanced, Three-Dimensional Plotting Library for Astronomy

We present a new, three-dimensional (3D) plotting library with advanced features, and support for standard and enhanced display devices. The library - S2PLOT - is written in C and can be used by C, C++ and FORTRAN programs on GNU/Linux and Apple/OSX systems. S2PLOT draws objects in a 3D (x,y,z) Cartesian space and the user interactively controls how this space is rendered at run time. With a PGPLOT inspired interface, S2PLOT provides astronomers with elegant techniques for displaying and exploring 3D data sets directly from their program code, and the potential to use stereoscopic and dome display devices. The S2PLOT architecture supports dynamic geometry and can be used to plot time-evolving data sets, such as might be produced by simulation codes. In this paper, we introduce S2PLOT to the astronomical community, describe its potential applications, and present some example uses of the library.Comment: 12 pages, 10 eps figures (higher resolution versions available from http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/s2plot/paperfigures). The S2PLOT library is available for download from http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/s2plo

A Survey of Interaction Techniques and Devices for Large High Resolution Displays

Innovations in large high-resolution wall-sized displays have been yielding benefits to visualizations in industry and academia, leading to a rapidly growing increase of their implementations. In scenarios such as these, the displayed visual information tends to be larger than the users field of view, hence the necessity to move away from traditional interaction methods towards more suitable interaction devices and techniques. This paper aspires to explore the state-of-the-art with respect to such technologies for large high-resolution displays

Kiosks 21: a new role for information kiosks?

Discusses and analyses the latest generation of information kiosks, Kiosks 21, which features information provision/promotion, interaction, transaction and relationships. In contrast to their task based predecessors, these kiosks focus on customer service delivery to ‘customers in context’. Five case studies of such kiosks located respectively in an airport, railway station, car rental base, hotel lobby, and shopping mall are analysed to demonstrate the way in which the kiosks are implemented to meet the differing requirements of customers in different contexts. Case studies are analysed in terms of kiosk design and location, user profile, information architecture, interface design, communication, and commerce. A range of areas for research and development are proposed.</p

Evaluation of Mobile Phones for Large Display Interaction

Large displays have become more and more common in the last few years. While interaction with these displays can be conducted using standard methods such as computer mouse and keyboard, this approach causes issues in multi-user environments, where the various conditions for providing multiple keyboards and mice, together with the facilities to employ them, cannot be met. To solve this problem, interaction using mobile phones was proposed by several authors. Previous solutions were specialized interaction metaphors only for certain applications. To gain more insight into general interaction patterns realizable with smart phones, we created a set of general test cases using a well-known taxonomy for interactions. These test cases were then evaluated in a user study, comparing smart phone usage against the traditional keyboard/mouse-combination. Results (time and user satisfaction) show strengths and weaknesses when using the new interaction with the smart phone. With further evaluations we draw conclusions on how to improve large display interaction using smart phones in general

Understanding Next-Generation VR: Classifying Commodity Clusters for Immersive Virtual Reality

Commodity clusters offer the ability to deliver higher performance computer graphics at lower prices than traditional graphics supercomputers. Immersive virtual reality systems demand notoriously high computational requirements to deliver adequate real-time graphics, leading to the emergence of commodity clusters for immersive virtual reality. Such clusters deliver the graphics power needed by leveraging the combined power of several computers to meet the demands of real-time interactive immersive computer graphics.However, the field of commodity cluster-based virtual reality is still in early stages of development and the field is currently adhoc in nature and lacks order. There is no accepted means for comparing approaches and implementers are left with instinctual or trial-and-error means for selecting an approach.This paper provides a classification system that facilitates understanding not only of the nature of different clustering systems but also the interrelations between them. The system is built from a new model for generalized computer graphics applications, which is based on the flow of data through a sequence of operations over the entire context of the application. Prior models and classification systems have been too focused in context and application whereas the system described here provides a unified means for comparison of works within the field