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LSU Visualization Lab Helps University Researchers See Their Data in New and Exciting Ways

BATON ROUGE – A virtual underwater environment in Second Life. A new, high-resolution video of neutron stars colliding. A 3-D movie of Hurricane Gustav’s wind field that impacted coastal Louisiana and Baton Rouge. Live, streaming video to show elementary students the creepy crawlies that live on their skin and in their hair.

What do these seemingly unrelated projects have in common? They are all initiatives LSU faculty conducted using the University’s Tier 2 Visualization Laboratory, located on the third floor of the Fred C. Frey Computing Services Center.

The LSU Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, operates this laboratory as a resource for faculty across the LSU campus who need advanced visualization assistance. The laboratory features a large-scale visualization wall to project images. Faculty from any discipline can use the laboratory to collaborate with researchers who have experience in advanced scientific visualization.

The CCT’s Visualization Consultant, Jinghua Ge, spent the past semester assisting faculty from disciplines including elementary education, physics, coastal studies and engineering with different projects.

“These services offer LSU faculty a new way to look at their data and develop solutions and models they could not do with traditional methods,” Ge said. “In the coming semester, I look forward to meeting with faculty from disciplines across the campus to let them know more about this exciting resource and to show them how they can use scientific visualization to benefit their projects.”

One project Ge worked on this semester was an initiative between CCT and the Department of Education to develop new ways of teaching science and technology to K-12 students. Using data from coastal studies, environmental engineering and basic sciences, Ge and graduate students working in the Tier 2 Visualization Laboratory created an underwater environment in Second Life. LSU has an island in Second Life, and the underwater space allows students to go there and experience an immersive ocean area. The students can manipulate weather data in this environment to see how different elements affect ocean life.

In another project, students of all ages can see highly magnified images of tiny, living organisms that thrive in Louisiana waters with a live visual stream from "Scope-On-A-Rope,” an LSU-developed hand-held analog microscope from the lab of Cindy Henk, Research Associate Manager of the Socolofsky Microscopy Center in the Department of Biological Sciences. Ge and one of the lab's undergraduate student workers, Kevin Kolz, worked with Henk to create a live streaming process for this data.  As students use the microscope, they can acquire images, which Ge set up to show live in Second Life. This way, students can go to the Second Life site and see live microscope images of microbes as the Scope-On-A-Rope is being used.

Ge also worked with LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy Professor Joel Tohline to better visualize his data of merging binary stars. Tohline already had conducted a movie simulation of this violent merger, but by collaborating with Ge, whose programming skills significantly enhanced the capabilities of an open-source visualization tool called VisTrails, he was able to analyze complex aspects of the merger in considerably more quantitative detail than had previously been possible.

Professor Q. Jim Chen, from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, used the laboratory to create a 3-D film of Hurricane Gustav, which hit Baton Rouge on Sept. 1, 2008. Chen’s research group developed a wind dataset for a 51-hour period during Hurricane Gustav and used the wind field to drive their storm surge and wave models. Ge helped the group visualize these data to create a 3-D model that allows better and more in-depth analysis of the storm.

“Hurricanes are just one example of how scientific visualization is enabling breakthroughs that were not possible just a few years ago,” Ge said. “Using these techniques, scientists can create more advanced models that take multiple elements into account, such as wind speed, storm surge, and ocean waves, as well as the resultant coastal erosion and sediment deposition. These models help them study hurricanes more effectively, and in the future, this could lead them to develop better and more accurate early warning systems.”

For more information on the Tier 2 Visualization Laboratory, please visit http://www.cct.lsu.edu/avsl/vizservice.html. Also, CCT and ITS have visualization consultants available in Middleton Library who can meet with LSU faculty, staff and students to let them know how they can take advantage of these services.

Users who already have Second Life installed can get a free avatar to explore the LSU Virtual Campus and see the visualization projects ongoing at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/LSU CCT/212/184/22.

Back to Articles

LSU Visualization Lab Helps University Researchers See Their Data in New and Exciting Ways

BATON ROUGE – A virtual underwater environment in Second Life. A new, high-resolution video of neutron stars colliding. A 3-D movie of Hurricane Gustav’s wind field that impacted coastal Louisiana and Baton Rouge. Live, streaming video to show elementary students the creepy crawlies that live on their skin and in their hair.

What do these seemingly unrelated projects have in common? They are all initiatives LSU faculty conducted using the University’s Tier 2 Visualization Laboratory, located on the third floor of the Fred C. Frey Computing Services Center.

The LSU Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, operates this laboratory as a resource for faculty across the LSU campus who need advanced visualization assistance. The laboratory features a large-scale visualization wall to project images. Faculty from any discipline can use the laboratory to collaborate with researchers who have experience in advanced scientific visualization.

The CCT’s Visualization Consultant, Jinghua Ge, spent the past semester assisting faculty from disciplines including elementary education, physics, coastal studies and engineering with different projects.

“These services offer LSU faculty a new way to look at their data and develop solutions and models they could not do with traditional methods,” Ge said. “In the coming semester, I look forward to meeting with faculty from disciplines across the campus to let them know more about this exciting resource and to show them how they can use scientific visualization to benefit their projects.”

One project Ge worked on this semester was an initiative between CCT and the Department of Education to develop new ways of teaching science and technology to K-12 students. Using data from coastal studies, environmental engineering and basic sciences, Ge and graduate students working in the Tier 2 Visualization Laboratory created an underwater environment in Second Life. LSU has an island in Second Life, and the underwater space allows students to go there and experience an immersive ocean area. The students can manipulate weather data in this environment to see how different elements affect ocean life.

In another project, students of all ages can see highly magnified images of tiny, living organisms that thrive in Louisiana waters with a live visual stream from "Scope-On-A-Rope,” an LSU-developed hand-held analog microscope from the lab of Cindy Henk, Research Associate Manager of the Socolofsky Microscopy Center in the Department of Biological Sciences. Ge and one of the lab's undergraduate student workers, Kevin Kolz, worked with Henk to create a live streaming process for this data.  As students use the microscope, they can acquire images, which Ge set up to show live in Second Life. This way, students can go to the Second Life site and see live microscope images of microbes as the Scope-On-A-Rope is being used.

Ge also worked with LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy Professor Joel Tohline to better visualize his data of merging binary stars. Tohline already had conducted a movie simulation of this violent merger, but by collaborating with Ge, whose programming skills significantly enhanced the capabilities of an open-source visualization tool called VisTrails, he was able to analyze complex aspects of the merger in considerably more quantitative detail than had previously been possible.

Professor Q. Jim Chen, from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, used the laboratory to create a 3-D film of Hurricane Gustav, which hit Baton Rouge on Sept. 1, 2008. Chen’s research group developed a wind dataset for a 51-hour period during Hurricane Gustav and used the wind field to drive their storm surge and wave models. Ge helped the group visualize these data to create a 3-D model that allows better and more in-depth analysis of the storm.

“Hurricanes are just one example of how scientific visualization is enabling breakthroughs that were not possible just a few years ago,” Ge said. “Using these techniques, scientists can create more advanced models that take multiple elements into account, such as wind speed, storm surge, and ocean waves, as well as the resultant coastal erosion and sediment deposition. These models help them study hurricanes more effectively, and in the future, this could lead them to develop better and more accurate early warning systems.”

For more information on the Tier 2 Visualization Laboratory, please visit http://www.cct.lsu.edu/avsl/vizservice.html. Also, CCT and ITS have visualization consultants available in Middleton Library who can meet with LSU faculty, staff and students to let them know how they can take advantage of these services.

Users who already have Second Life installed can get a free avatar to explore the LSU Virtual Campus and see the visualization projects ongoing at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/LSU CCT/212/184/22.