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Brown & SWOF : Overview and Current Status: 

Brown & SWOF : Overview and Current Status Brown University TCASCV (Technology Center for Advanced Scientific Computing & Visualization) SWOF Kick-off Meeting 11/13/02

Background: 

Background 1999 TCASCV founded to develop local parallel computing and IVR visualization systems for Brown research community, in partnership with IBM Initial systems SP-based, with legacy SGI Onyx-2 for graphics development New systems cluster-based, with Intellistation cluster and pending IBM Scalable Graphics Engines as primary graphics platform

Research: 

Research Current Research user interfaces for IVR, focused on visualization scalable graphics with IBM Application-driven internal and external Arterial blood flow Flow-gradient tensor field brain visualization Planetary terrain visualization (Mars Global Surveyor) Digital Archeology (Great Temple of Ancient Petra) Molecular Visualization Extension of U/I in CEI’s Ensight

VR Systems at Brown 1/2: 

VR Systems at Brown 1/2 TCASCV VR applications laboratory Displays 4-wall Cave - TAN VR-cube (8-foot edge) 1-wall Brown-built (6-foot edge), single CRT projector 3 tracked workstations (Fishtank VR) Tracking Intersense IS-900 (for Cave, wall and workstations) Polhemus Fastrak (Cave; device prototyping because of small receiver size) Ascension Flock (workstations; selected for DC field) Devices 6DOF Wanda, Fakespace pinch gloves, Intersense wand & stylus, wireless iPAQ Brown-built (paint brush table, finger sleeve, lazy susan) IBM Scalable Graphics cluster – 48 Intellistations and two SGE-3 framebuffers UNC’s VRPN tracking and interaction device server

VR Systems at Brown (2/2): 

VR Systems at Brown (2/2) Computer Science Graphics Lab Fakespace Desk (Intersense IS-900 and Polhemus Fastrak) Cognitive Sciences and Linguistics VENLab Kaiser HMD custom Intersense IS-900 large-area tracking (approx. 30’x40’)

Computing platforms at TCASCV: 

Computing platforms at TCASCV 160 CPU SP (aging, mixed-node) 48 node dual-Athlon cluster, Gig-E 62 node dual-Xeon cluster, Myrinet 2000 and Gig-E (48 nodes are Intellistation graphics cluster rendering nodes)

Brown’s role in SWOF: 

Brown’s role in SWOF

Remote Rendering Services : 

Remote Rendering Services IBM 48 node cluster - dual processor (1.7 Ghz Xeons) - Quadro4’s - Myrinet - Chromium Status - Cluster configuration finished this week - installing AG software soon - interested in Chromium interface

AG Node: 

AG Node Status - High priority; currently looking for space - Temporary setup by early 2003 - Permanent setup by late 2003 Interested in augmenting AG node for - Fishtank stations - Powerwall - Cave

3D Audio Development: Motivation: 

3D Audio Development: Motivation Cues in Visualization Applications Scene Sources/Ambience in Artistic Apps (e.g., Prof. Coover’s Cavewriting) Telecollaboration

3D Audio Development: Directions: 

3D Audio Development: Directions Mac-based server XML interface Max/MSP (www.cycling74.com) with IRCAM’s SPAT (www.ircam.fr) Windows-based server Creative Audigy OpenAL (www.openal.org) with EAX extensions under Chromium Parallel OpenAL server extensions (barrier/semaphore semantics, a la Cr rendering server) OpenAL provides natural OpenGL-like framework for audio scene rendering Looking into extending Chromium

Molecular Biology “virtual lab” : 

Molecular Biology “virtual lab” Growing area at Brown. Departments: Neuroscience, Pathology, Immunology, Biology, Molecular Biology … Packages we’re interested in: Bioinformatics: BLAST, PSI-BLAST, CLUSTALW, PSI-PRED, Threader, ProFit, GeNIe/SMILE, EMBOSS ... Structural Informatics: GROMOS, GROMACS, NAMD, AutoDock, CHARMM, ECEPPAK Local Databases: EMBL, Swiss-Prot, TrEMBL, InterPro, NR, FSSP, Pfam, ProDom

Software: Status : 

Software: Status Currently only computational-chemistry packages (GAMESS, NAMD, Jaguar..) Currently hiring group to manage installation of large MolBio software base. Focus is on MolBio - much more demand than Atmospheric/Oceanic software.

What Brown brings to SWOF: 

What Brown brings to SWOF Expertise in U/I development, with current focus on IVR U/I Semi-Immersive/Immersive display and rendering cluster test-bed Positional audio rendering systems development Expertise in systems integration Expertise in computational chemistry and molecular visualization

What Brown Expects to Gain from Participation in SWOF: 

What Brown Expects to Gain from Participation in SWOF Development of research collaboration, and interaction with other SWOF members Optimization of Brown’s AG infrastructure Development of local computational biochemistry research resource framework