VISUALIZATION

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology have entered into a cooperative agreement that will provide Beckman researchers with access to advanced communications technology and will enlist their aid in supporting NCSA's visualization and virtual reality environments. The two research powerhouses, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, share a long history of complementary activities and supportive endeavors. Now that partnership will be strengthened by the formal appointment of Hank Kaczmarski, director of Beckman's Integrated Systems Laboratory, and Donna Cox, leader of NCSA's Experimental Technologies Division, as co-directors of the Beckman/NCSA Immersive Spaces. "This agreement enhances the already excellent working relationship between NCSA and Beckman," Cox said. "Our activities and expertise complement one another well, and this allows us to share resources, experience, and creativity in a truly collegial fashion." Both partners will gain immediate benefits from the collaboration. NCSA has invested in and supported Access Grid communication and collaboration technology, and has AG nodes at Beckman, the University's South Research Park, and in Washington, D.C. Based on grid computing technologies and high-speed data networks, the Access Grid supports group-to-group interactions across high-speed networks, with large, high-resolution multimedia displays, advanced interactive environments, and interfaces to grid middleware and visualization environments. Beckman researchers will be able to use NCSA's AG nodes for collaborative meetings with distant colleagues. Beckman will return the favor by giving NCSA's virtual environments a boost, providing the upgrades necessary to revitalize the CAVE, a room-sized virtual reality environment, and the smaller ImmersaDesk. The CAVE space will primarily serve as an experimental environment focusing on developing immersive visualization applications and multimodal interfaces. The partnership got off to a strong start during the annual Engineering Open House on March 12-13 with the return of the perennially popular CAVE tours. Hundreds of people of all ages immersed themselves in the CAVE's 3D virtual environments and experienced the other visualization and communication technologies available in NCSA's "Smart Room" at Beckman. The partners also plan to develop other opportunities for collaborative research and creative exploration. NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) is a national high-performance computing center that develops and deploys cutting-edge computing, networking and information technologies. Located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NCSA is funded by the National Science Foundation. Additional support comes from the state of Illinois, the University of Illinois, private sector partners and other federal agencies. For more information, see http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/. The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is an inter- and multidisciplinary research institute devoted to basic research in the physical sciences, computation, engineering, biology, behavior, and cognition. The Institute's primary mission is to foster interdisciplinary work of the highest quality in an environment that transcends many of the limitations inherent in traditional university organizations and structures. The Institute was founded on the premise that reducing the barriers between traditional scientific and technological disciplines can yield research advances that more conventional approaches cannot. For more information, see http://www.beckman.uiuc.edu/.