2East Newsletter

Published every two weeks, May 8th, 2001

The Future of Research: Advanced Visualization Services for NU Faculty

Every time a researcher, teacher or student makes a graph, diagram or any type of image they are engaged in visualization. Visualization can be broken down into two primary categories: presentation and research. Until computers became widely available for lectures and talks, visualization in presentations was done mostly on transparencies and slides. It is now quite common for lectures to be done using PowerPoint or some other presentation software. Similarly, visualization for research has evolved from hand drawing graphs a few decades ago to computer plotting packages that are commonly used today. The techniques and tools for visualization have evolved during the past few years, primarily driven by the prevalence of inexpensive powerful PC's and software developments.

Today we are in the middle of another revolution in the capability of graphics hardware. This rapid change is occurring because of the need (and market) for powerful graphics to provide entertainment, primarily in the form of virtual reality games. In terms of particular quantities, such as polygon count and texture memory, modern graphics cards and game consoles have throughput that was unattainable at any price only a few years ago. In terms of the improvement in performance, in the past few years graphics hardware capabilities have increased faster than the famous Moore's Law (doubling every 18 months), which has roughly predicts the improvement of general computer performance. Considering the ratio of performance to price, modern inexpensive graphics hardware is even more revolutionary.

At Academic Technologies, we have spent much of the last year investigating the needs of NU researchers in various disciplines. The underlying principle of this program is to minimize the time that a professor or student would have to spend to learn to use visualization systems. This is done by using software and hardware solutions that scale from the desktop to more complicated systems. Based on those discussions, we have put together the first stage of a project to bring advanced visualization to NU for both education and research. This includes two Sun Microsystems graphics workstations and a set of high-resolution stereo projectors that allow the user to see data in three dimensions by wearing special glasses.

Please join us for "Visualization Services for Faculty" being presented by the 2East: New Technology Series at 4:00 pm on May 16. We will discuss how advanced visualization can be used to supplement teaching and to help analyze large, complex data sets. We will have time following the seminar to visit the projection facility itself and see first hand what 3D visualization can provide. For more information or to register for the presentation, please click here.

IN THIS ISSUE: The Future of Research: Advanced Visualization Services for Faculty at NU Free Seminars for the Weeks of May 7th and May 14th Data on the Desktop: Using Technology to Make Library Resources Known to Faculty and Students "Authoring in an Electronic Envirnoment": eBooks Getting to Know 2East: Mary Schuller		*Published every two weeks, May 8th, 2001* The Future of Research: Advanced Visualization Services for NU Faculty Every time a researcher, teacher or student makes a graph, diagram or any type of image they are engaged in visualization. Visualization can be broken down into two primary categories: presentation and research. Until computers became widely available for lectures and talks, visualization in presentations was done mostly on transparencies and slides. It is now quite common for lectures to be done using PowerPoint or some other presentation software. Similarly, visualization for research has evolved from hand drawing graphs a few decades ago to computer plotting packages that are commonly used today. The techniques and tools for visualization have evolved during the past few years, primarily driven by the prevalence of inexpensive powerful PC's and software developments. Today we are in the middle of another revolution in the capability of graphics hardware. This rapid change is occurring because of the need (and market) for powerful graphics to provide entertainment, primarily in the form of virtual reality games. In terms of particular quantities, such as polygon count and texture memory, modern graphics cards and game consoles have throughput that was unattainable at any price only a few years ago. In terms of the improvement in performance, in the past few years graphics hardware capabilities have increased faster than the famous Moore's Law (doubling every 18 months), which has roughly predicts the improvement of general computer performance. Considering the ratio of performance to price, modern inexpensive graphics hardware is even more revolutionary. At Academic Technologies, we have spent much of the last year investigating the needs of NU researchers in various disciplines. The underlying principle of this program is to minimize the time that a professor or student would have to spend to learn to use visualization systems. This is done by using software and hardware solutions that scale from the desktop to more complicated systems. Based on those discussions, we have put together the first stage of a project to bring advanced visualization to NU for both education and research. This includes two Sun Microsystems graphics workstations and a set of high-resolution stereo projectors that allow the user to see data in three dimensions by wearing special glasses. Please join us for "Visualization Services for Faculty" being presented by the 2East: New Technology Series at 4:00 pm on May 16. We will discuss how advanced visualization can be used to supplement teaching and to help analyze large, complex data sets. We will have time following the seminar to visit the projection facility itself and see first hand what 3D visualization can provide. For more information or to register for the presentation, please click here.