Final Program for the DOE 1997 Computer Graphics Forum

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Program Schedule

Sunday

18:00 to 20:00 - Welcome Reception at Snow King

Monday

8:30 - Welcome, Opening Remarks
8:45 - Guest Speaker: Gordon Smith, BNL.
9:15 - Site Reports
10:30 - Break
10:45 - PC Graphics Panel
12:00 - Lunch
13:30 - The Web
14:30 - Discussion Session, Topic - Future of DOECGF
15:00 - Break
15:15 - Works-in-progress Panel
16:00 - Parallel Visualization
Monday Evening: Open VCR - Time and place TBD.

Tuesday

09:00 - ASCI: Introduction. Dino Pavlakos, Sandia ABQ.
09:15 - Morning Session: ASCI Session I - Visualization
12:00 - Lunch
13:00-17:00 - ASCI Session II - Infrastructure
Tuesday Evening: DOECGF Banquet. Place and time TBD.

Wednesday

09:00 - Modeling and Big Data
10:15 - Break
10:30 - Virtual Reality
11:30 - Open Discussion, Concluding Remarks

Invited Presentation

Perspective on and History of the DOE Graphics Forum Gordon Smith, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Gordon has been around a heck of a long time, and has been asked to share some of his insights gained over the years insofar as the DOE Graphics Forum and the graphics effort in general are concerned.

Presentations:

The Web

VRML for Scientific Visualization? Steve Lau, Berkeley National Laboratory.
One of the most intriguing developments in Internet technology is VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language). The latest specification of VRML 2.0 holds much promise in allowing for real time interaction with virtual worlds. This talk will be provide an overview of VRML in light of scientific visualization and discuss some current projects we are working on at LBNL using VRML.

Virtual Collaborative Environments Arthurine Breckenridge, Sandia National Laboratory - Albuquerque
Virtual collaborative environments are the key research in three areas: Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Virutal Reality, and Distributed Computing. The talk will focus on areas of measurements, networking, time and space, and work in progress. We would like to highlight our working prototypes with G7's GIBN project to University of Stuttgart and the VRML collaboration working group, Living Worlds.

Java-based Scientific Data Objects Phil Andrews and Joel Welling, Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center.
The problem of portable data storage has been approached, attacked, and wrestled to the ground numerous times in the history of computing, but never totally subdued. With the advent of enormous computing efforts that are external to the scientific community, we believe it is time for a paradigm shift in the problem's approach. Conventionally, specific data formats are designed with associated access mechanisms. Extensions of these formats and porting efforts to other hardware and software platforms are an ongoing obligation of the supporting organization. We believe that the actual data formats should be of concern only to the originator of the data and should not be specified in any manner; only an interface which allows access to the data. Portability, compression, etc., should be free.
One month ago SUN released the Java Development Kit version 1.1, which had two new features which we are using in our effort. The JAR file format is a compressed archive file which can contain both Java code and data, designed to be used by WWW browsers. Object serialization allows the conversion of an in-memory Java object to a byte stream that can be shipped across a network or stored in a file. These features can be used to provide a JAR file that contains not only the scientific data, but also the methods which provide access. The JAR file can be opened to produce an in-memory Data Object that Implements a standard Interface. Only the Interface is standardised, the data itself can be stored in any format whatsoever, or may even be generated on the fly.
The JAR file format is an extension of the ZIP file and is well compressed while portability is supported by enormous teams of commercial programmers. We have had access to the software for only a short time, but hope to have a prototype running by the time of the Forum.
Click here to check out Phil's stuff. Warning: it is laced with Java.

Virtual Reality

Walls, CAVEs and Domes, Oh My! L. Eric Greenwade, INEEL
Many facilities have, or are considering, immersive environment displays for working group sized audiences. Several of the technologies employed include walls, CAVEs, Domes and variations on these themes. The INEEL is in the process of constructing such an environment. This talk will cover the technologies chosen for this installation, the reasons behind its selection and the known advantages and disadvantages of this solution.

Development of a Threaded Haptic Interface Driver for Scientific Computing. Wes Bethel, Berkeley National Laboratory
At LBL, we explored the use of a PHANToM point-force feedback device for use in our Vis Lab. I'll talk about the various issues we encountered while building a driver for this device, along with some info about our demonstration last year at Supercomputing 96 in Pittsburgh.

Visualization Environment Using Haptics. Tom Anderson, Sandia National Laboratory - Albuquerque
Sandia started investigating the use of haptics in a traditional manner to include the sense of touch into a virtual reality environment. This older work was shown at Supercomputing '96. We then chose to redirect our research to use the haptic device in a more encompassing role as the next-generation mouse. The haptic device is integrated into a virtual environment to give the customer an advanced navigation and interaction tool with additional functionality such as force feedback, 6DOF manipulators, 3D widgets, etc. (This would be a live demo on a small SGI machine)

Parallel Visualization

Commercial Parallel Visualization Software Rick Angelini, ARL
The Army Research Laboratory is pursuing the availability of commercial, general purpose visualization tools for use on "HPC size" datasets. The immediate availability of multi-processor and distributed computing technology promotes the concept of parallel visualization tools. Two Phase-I SBIRs have been awarded in pursuit of this goal, and the work performed and the potential impact will be discussed. This technology may already be having an impact on the ASCI program.

Distributed Interactive Computing Jerry Clarke, ARL
The Distributed Interactive Computing Environment (DICE) is a toolkit for developing applications for distributed high performance computing. DICE has been used to develop a custom interface to CTH which allows users to interactively visualize a running CTH program and generate animations. This interface, as applied to a "Grand Challenge" problem using CTH will be discussed.

Visualization Tools for DICE Jennifer Hare, ARL
The Distributed Interactive Computing Environment (DICE) is a flexible framework for running and visualizing computationally intensive codes. Using the heterogeneous distributed shared memory, interactive 3D visualization and graphical user interfaces provided by DICE, specific applications can be customized to make the best use of available resources. The components of this environment and their interactions will be discussed. Click here to check out the DICE web pages.

Modeling and Big Data

Toward Interactive Volume Visualization of Time-Evolving Data John Clyne, NCAR
The Visualization Group at NCAR is working with HPCC Grand Challenge turbulence researches to help better undestand highly turbulent flows which impact large-scale dynamics within oceans, atmospheres and stars. The turbulence data sets are substantial in size: 256^3 - 512^3, with potentially thousands of time steps. This talk will relate experiences and efforts to interactively volume visualize geophysical and astrophysical fluid dynamics using a parallel implementation of the shear-warp factorization. Click here for more info.

Wildfire Simulation and Visualization Jamie Painter, ACL - Los Alamos National Laboratory
The ability to forecast the progress of crisis events would significantly reduce human suffering and loss of life, the destruction of property, and expenditures for assessment and recovery. Los Alamos National Laboratory has established a scientific thrust in crisis forecasting to address this National Challenge. In the initial phase of this project, scientists at Los Alamos are developing computer models to predict the spread of a wildfire. Visualization of the results of the wildfire simulation will be used by fire personnel as a visual forecast of the wildfire's evolution and by scientists to assess the quality of the simulation. The fire personnel and scientists want the visualization to look as realistic as possible without comprising scientific accuracy. This paper describes how the visualization was created, analyzes the tools and approach that was used, and suggests directions for future work and research.
Advanced Concurrent Engineering Environment Jeff Jortner, Sandia National Laboratory, Livermore
Jeff will describe development issues for a large scale collaborative engineering environment.

ASCI: Session One

Each of the three labs will give presentations about it's activities pertaining to the ASCI program.

Dino Pavlakos (Chair) and Philip Heermann, Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque.
Status of Sandia-ABQ's ASCI visualization effort.

Jamie Painter (and Robert Gurule??) , Los Alamos National Laboratory
Status report on ASCI (and ACL) graphics and visualization efforts.

ASCI PSE Visualization Efforst and Status at LLNL Mark Miller, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore Lab is developing a high performance graphics server system to support multiple concurrent users visualizing very large data sets from their existing desktop platforms. The visualization server is constructed from a multiple-pipe SGI Onyx-class machine. The server renders using local graphics hardware, then transmits pixels over a high-bandwidth network channel to clients.

ASCI: Session Two

ASCI Common Infrastructure.

ASCI Data Modelling and Formats Larry Schoof, Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque
The three DP labs have been designing a common data model that all ASCI applications can use, primarily to allow data sharing between applications. The advantages of this work will be significant, allowing common tools (especially common visualization tools) to be used that access this common data model/format. This has proven to be a rather daunting task, but we have made some progress. I will report on the three major divisions of this effort: abstract data model, application programming interface, and low-level, parallel I/O libraries. Click here to download copies of the slides used in this talk.

ASCI Visualization Tools Evaluation Jeff Rowe, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The ASCI Visualization Common Tools Subgroup with representatives from LLNL, LANL, and SNL, has completed an evaluation of ten visualization tools. This talk will review the evaluation methods and philosophy, the feature set used to measure tool capabilities, and the recommendations of the subgroup.

Prototype Developments with AVS/Express and IBM Data Explorer Stephany Bouchier, Los Alamos National Laboratory
LANL's responsibilities for the ASCI Visualization Tools Evaluation included the appraisals of both AVS/Express and IBM's Data Visualization Explorer (DX). Neither of these are turnkey packages. Instead, both provide application development environments for visualization. We approached our evaluations by developing two separate but similar applications, one using Express and one using DX. I will describe and compare these two efforts.

Panels:

PC Graphics

This panel will discuss issues pertaining to an emerging fact-of-life: that PC's are becoming more viable as a desktop delivery medium for scientific graphics.

PC Graphics: What else can it do besides play Doom? Steve Lau (Chair), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Pick up any PC magazine and no doubt you will find at least one advertisement for the latest 3D graphics accelerator card selling for under $500 and claiming graphics rates unconceivable several years ago. How will this affect the scientfic visualization community? Are they all they claim to be? Are they only good for games? This panel will be a lively discussion about all aspects of this compelling technology. Bring your experiences, biases, successes and horror stories. Click here to see more info.
Jamie Painter, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Phil Andrews, Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center
Wes Bethel, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Will give a very brief comparision and contrast between Direct3D and OpenGL, the two main API's for doing graphics on PC-class hardware. Then will proceed to tear the PC graphics to shreds.
Bill Nickless, Argonne National Laboratory
Here's a guy who thinks that PC graphics engines can be used to drive CAVEs.

Works-In-Progress

This panel will be a forum to make a short presentation about a work-in-progress.

Donuts and DNA Kevin Campbell, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
The primary goal of the LBNL Visualization group is to work with researchers to visualize their data. In this talk I will discuss several current projects, including displaying toroidal Tokamak data for fusion researchers, virtually exploring copper mines in Chile, visualizing large data sets from the Computational Accelerator Grand Challenge, examining radiation damage to DNA, and helping nuclear scientists visualize mind-bendingly high-dimensional spaces.

Questions/Comments