A cloud-enabled remote visualization tool for time-varying climate data analytics

The ever-growing time-varying climate datasets pose challenges for efficient analytics using the current desktop-based or generic remote visualization tools. We present a tightly-coupled scalable cloud-enabled remote visualization tool that exploits the computational capabilities of Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). We implement three typical volumetric/3D visualization techniques to illustrate the enhanced performance offered by remote GPU clusters. Our development also enables fast deployment to facilitate the access of remote analytics tools by a wide range of end users.     

面向时变体数据的特征可视化方法

目的 自然界中的大部分现象本质上都是在空间上随时间的流逝不断发展变化的物理或化学过程,可以表述为含有时间变量的数据场,这些数据场称为时变体数据。随着科学计算技术、计算机仿真技术以及现代观测技术的发展,能够以前所未有的精度对自然现象进行仿真或者观测,但同时也面临时变体数据体积大、时间长以及变量数目多的难题。为了更有效地显示时变体数据并挖掘数据中的关键信息,针对时变体数据的可视化,本文提出一种基于数据特征的方法,用于探索时变体数据中感兴趣区域(即特征)的特点与变化。方法 通过将特征提取、特征跟踪、运动检测和提出的3种特征可视化方法(数据帧特征可视化、单个运动过程特征可视化和空间多运动过程特征可视化)置于同一个框架之中,提供一种从时间域和空间域探索多变量时变体数据的一站式解决方案,并突出时变体数据的动力学特性。结果 本文方法在4组不同的时变体数据上应用,对数据中特征各变量的变化以及感兴趣的运动进行了特征可视化。结论 实验结果显示本文方法能以较小的时间成本有效显示数据中的特征以及用户定义的运动,方法的有效性与实用性得到了验证。     

Importance-driven time-varying data visualization

The ability to identify and present the most essential aspects of time-varying data is critically important in many areas of science and engineering. This paper introduces an importance-driven approach to time-varying volume data visualization for enhancing that ability. By conducting a block-wise analysis of the data in the joint feature-temporal space, we derive an importance curve for each data block based on the formulation of conditional entropy from information theory. Each curve characterizes the local temporal behavior of the respective block, and clustering the importance curves of all the volume blocks effectively classifies the underlying data. Based on different temporal trends exhibited by importance curves and their clustering results, we suggest several interesting and effective visualization techniques to reveal the important aspects of time-varying data.     

Texture-based feature tracking for effective time-varying data visualization

Analyzing, visualizing, and illustrating changes within time-varying volumetric data is challenging due to the dynamic changes occurring between timesteps. The changes and variations in computational fluid dynamic volumes and atmospheric 3D datasets do not follow any particular transformation. Features within the data move at different speeds and directions making the tracking and visualization of these features a difficult task. We introduce a texture-based feature tracking technique to overcome some of the current limitations found in the illustration and visualization of dynamic changes within time-varying volumetric data. Our texture-based technique tracks various features individually and then uses the tracked objects to better visualize structural changes. We show the effectiveness of our texture-based tracking technique with both synthetic and real world time-varying data. Furthermore, we highlight the specific visualization, annotation, registration, and feature isolation benefits of our technique. For instance, we show how our texture-based tracking can lead to insightful visualizations of time-varying data. Such visualizations, more than traditional visualization techniques, can assist domain scientists to explore and understand dynamic changes.     

Magicsphere: an insight tool for 3D data visualization

How to render very complex datasets, and yet maintain interactive response times, is a hot topic in computer graphics. The MagicSphere idea originated as a solution to this problem, but its potential goes much further than this original scope. In fact, it has been designed as a very generical 3D widget: it defines a spherical volume of interest in the dataset modeling space. Then, several filters can be associated with the Magicsphere, which apply different visualization modalities to the data contained in the volume of interest. The visualization of multi-resolution datasets is selected here as a case study and an ad hoc filter has been designed, the MultiRes filter. Some results of a prototipal implementation are presented and discussed.     

SOLIDIS: a tool for microactuator simulation in 3-D

SOLIDIS is an engineering software tool tailored for the coupled three-dimensional (3-D) analysis of microactuators. Surface electrostatic forces, thermomechanics, and piezoelectric effects are correctly treated. The solution algorithms implemented enable efficient and accurate static analysis and optimization of MEMS actuators. Adaptive mesh refinement results in near-optimal meshes in the sense of achieving maximum accuracy for a given number of mesh nodes. A zone partitioning scheme permits efficient simulation of complex actuator structures. Additional key issues are mesh updating using a Monte Carlo algorithm to account for the actuator's movement and the application of smoothing algorithms for the extraction of accurate electrostatic forces     

A 3-D visualization method for image-guided brain surgery

This paper deals with a 3D methodology for brain tumor image-guided surgery. The methodology is based on development of a visualization process that mimics the human surgeon behavior and decision-making. In particular, it originally constructs a 3D representation of a tumor by using the segmented version of the 2D MRI images. Then it develops an optimal path for the tumor extraction based on minimizing the surgical effort and penetration area. A cost function, incorporated in this process, minimizes the damage surrounding healthy tissues taking into consideration the constraints of a new snake-like surgical tool proposed here. The tumor extraction method presented in this paper is compared with the ordinary method used on brain surgery, which is based on a straight-line based surgical tool. Illustrative examples based on real simulations present the advantages of the 3D methodology proposed here.     

Query-driven visualization of time-varying adaptive mesh refinement data

The visualization and analysis of AMR-based simulations is integral to the process of obtaining new insight in scientific research. We present a new method for performing query-driven visualization and analysis on AMR data, with specific emphasis on time-varying AMR data. Our work introduces a new method that directly addresses the dynamic spatial and temporal properties of AMR grids that challenge many existing visualization techniques. Further, we present the first implementation of query-driven visualization on the GPU that uses a GPU-based indexing structure to both answer queries and efficiently utilize GPU memory. We apply our method to two different science domains to demonstrate its broad applicability.     

A web-based,interactive visualization tool for social environmental survey data

Understanding human motivations and actions related to environmental problems is central to modeling complex, human-natural systems. However, social science survey data on environmental issues are often presented in relatively static reports and figures and are not easily accessible for participatory deliberation. Federal data sharing mandates motivate innovative data visualization and sharing mechanisms. We developed an open-source, web-based Survey Data Viewer as a visual interface to explore quantitative social science survey data. We used the Python Django web framework and the D3.js visualization library to create and deploy the tool. The Viewer was implemented using a water-related survey administered to a large, random sample of Utah adults in public venues. The Viewer allows users to visualize question responses based on demographic variables with percentages and mean response levels. We developed a standardized template for encoding survey data and metadata that permits the generalization of the tool to other similar surveys.     

Gesture recognition using Bezier curves for visualization navigation from registered 3-D data

This paper presents a gesture recognition system for visualization navigation. Scientists are interested in developing interactive settings for exploring large data sets in an intuitive environment. The input consists of registered 3-D data. A geometric method using Bezier curves is used for the trajectory analysis and classification of gestures. The hand gesture speed is incorporated into the algorithm to enable correct recognition from trajectories with variations in hand speed. The method is robust and reliable: correct hand identification rate is 99.9% (from 1641 frames), modes of hand movements are correct 95.6% of the time, recognition rate (given the right mode) is 97.9%. An application to gesture-controlled visualization of 3D bioinformatics data is also presented.     

A scene graph based visualization method for representing continuous simulation data

This paper proposes a scene graph based visualization method that can verify time-varying continuous analysis simulation in a virtual reality (VR) environment by using the computer-aided engineering (CAE) data of structural analysis in product development. In previous research, the use of CAE analysis data has been problematic because of the lack of any interactive simulation controls for visualizing continuous simulation data. Moreover, the research on post-processing methods for real-time evaluation of CAE analysis data has not been sufficient. We therefore propose a scene graph based visualization method for representing continuous simulation data. The method can continuously visualize static analysis data independently of any timeline; it can also continuously visualize dynamic analysis data that varies in relation to the timeline. The visualization system for continuous simulation data, which includes CAE2VR Middleware that interfaces with various formats of CAE analysis data as well as functions for visualizing continuous simulation data and operational functions, enables users to verify simulation results with more realistic scenes.     

A cache visualization tool

Improved cache performance is crucial to improved code performance. By visualizing cache behavior as the program is simulated, this memory analysis tool dynamically represents cache phenomena. The results can guide developers in making better software and hardware optimizations. The authors have developed a cache visualization tool which both dynamically visualizes cache content and provides related statistics     

A visualization tool for Y2K

To facilitate Y2K conversions, Bell Laboratories has developed a Y2K visualization tool. The input to the tool is the output of commercially available Cobol parsing tools that identify lines potentially affected by Y2K. While these tools are extremely useful, their output is daunting. Presenting this output visually increases assessment productivity by as much as 80 percent. Visualization also improves conversion quality by suggesting more-informed and efficient repair strategies. This visualization tool is based on the idea that no one view is sufficient to answer important questions concerning Y2K. It therefore provides a suite of tightly coupled, linked views. Each view is engineered for a particular task, is interactive, and is used for both display and analysis. Linking between views causes interactive operations to propagate instantly in each view. The authors report that the results to date have been promising. In one case, the time required for assessment and conversion strategy development dropped from three weeks to three days     

非规则三维数据的曲面拟合方法

给出了一种非规则三维数据的曲面拟合方法,该方法给出的网络模型不需要删除奇异数据,从而可以保持数据信息的完整性,此外,该方法给出的拟合曲面平滑,连续性好,局部细节丰富,且处处可偏导。     

A tool for the interactive 3D visualization of electronic structure in molecules and solids

This paper presents the Vienna ab initio simulation package (VASP) data viewer, a desktop 3D visualization application for the analysis of valence electronic structure information derived from first-principles quantum-mechanical density functional calculations. This tool allows a scientist to directly view and manipulate the calculated charge density or electron localization function (ELF) from an electronic structure calculation, providing insight into the nature of chemical bonding. Particular attention was given to the design and implementation of the user interface (UI) for the data viewer. It provides for expert and novice usage, and both natural direct manipulation and precise numerical control. The data viewer has proven useful to chemical scientists for understanding the results of electronic structure calculations.     

Using difference intervals for time-varying isosurface visualization

We present a novel approach to out-of-core time-varying isosurface visualization. We attempt to interactively visualize time-varying datasets which are too large to fit into main memory using a technique which is dramatically different from existing algorithms. Inspired by video encoding techniques, we examine the data differences between time steps to extract isosurface information. We exploit span space extraction techniques to retrieve operations necessary to update isosurface geometry from neighboring time steps. Because only the changes between time steps need to be retrieved from disk, I/O bandwidth requirements are minimized. We apply temporal compression to further reduce disk access and employ a point-based previewing technique that is refined in idle interaction cycles. Our experiments on computational simulation data indicate that this method is an extremely viable solution to large time-varying isosurface visualization. Our work advances the state-of-the-art by enabling all isosurfaces to be represented by a compact set of operations.     

MolSpace: a computer desktop tool for visualization of massive molecular data

The authors have developed a software tool, MolSpace, to visualize massive molecular datasets. MolSpace can project a set of massive multivariate data onto a visual space (two- or three-dimensional space) by means of principal component analysis. MolSpace allows users not only to draw a scatter diagram of the data but also to display their two- or three-dimensional molecular structures as the objects in that space. With a probe (a molecular object) the user can navigate vast data spaces, thus facilitating understanding of the data structure. In addition, partial space searching is also available that is based on similarity searching techniques. It is possible to interrogate a three-dimensional structure of a chemical compound that corresponds to each object on the space in real time. The detail of the system is discussed with an illustrative example.     

LANDISVIEW: A visualization tool for landscape modelling

A major challenge in landscape and environmental modelling is to effectively visualize large amounts of time-series simulation output, often in various Geographic Information System (GIS) formats. We developed a software tool (LANDISVIEW), to easily visualize and animate time-series of ERDAS *.gis maps. The open source tool can also be used to generate batch files for FRAGSTATS, a widely used spatial analysis program.     

CTViz: A tool for the visualization of transport in nanocomposites

A visualization tool (CTViz) for charge transport processes in 3-D hybrid materials (nanocomposites) was developed, inspired by the need for a graphical application to assist in code debugging and data presentation of an existing in-house code. As the simulation code grew, troubleshooting problems grew increasingly difficult without an effective way to visualize 3-D samples and charge transport in those samples. CTViz is able to produce publication and presentation quality visuals of the simulation box, as well as static and animated visuals of the paths of individual carriers through the sample. CTViz was designed to provide a high degree of flexibility in the visualization of the data. A feature that characterizes this tool is the use of shade and transparency levels to highlight important details in the morphology or in the transport paths by hiding or dimming elements of little relevance to the current view. This is fundamental for the visualization of 3-D systems with complex structures. The code presented here provides these required capabilities, but has gone beyond the original design and could be used as is or easily adapted for the visualization of other particulate transport where transport occurs on discrete paths.