The Scientific Visualization Lab.

The Scientific Visualization Laboratory at Georgia Tech is operated by the Educational Technologies Directorate of the Office of Information Technology. It is interdisciplinary and open to all researchers and educators at Georgia Tech. The lab is physically located in to the GVU Center within the College of Computing building (Room 259).

The purpose of the Scientific Visualization laboratory (a.k.a. "The SciVis Lab") is to provide cutting-edge tools and techniques for analyzing and visualizing complex scientific data. With the powerful graphics workstations and other equipment in the lab, researchers are able to view results using high resolution, true color graphics, three dimensional solid modeling, even animation.

With all these means of displaying information, researchers have the capability to comprehend visual patterns and dynamical relationships of great complexity, providing them with profoundly useful tools for understanding scientific data. We expect that in developing their methods of scientific visualization, users will not only employ currently available modeling, design, and display software, but they will also forge new types of visualization methods that will be especially suited to their data. The staff and facilities of the Scientific Visualization Lab are committed to this enterprise.

The facilities are available without charge to all faculty and students engaged in scientific or engineering research or the development of material for use in the classroom.

The lab has several graphics workstations, servers with over 50 GB of disk space, a color laser printer and other peripherals. These are listed in the Hardware section. A detailed listing of Software in the lab is also available. The SGI and Sun workstations in the GVU Center are accessible with the same account and password used in the SciVis Lab and may be used by SciVis Lab users when available.

The personnel of the lab include the acting manager, Mary Trauner, and two GRA's: Kasemchart Sriwalai and Jeffrey Hsieh. Generally one of them is in the laboratory to assist you (look for the User Assistant sign on their computer).

It is our desire that the Scientific Visualization Lab be an open and interactive environment where the users feel free to ask each other questions, and to share experiences and software. We will do our part to develop this environment by building libraries of software and providing some expertise (or telling you where you can get it). This environment may foster full-scale collaborative efforts that wed different disciplines in the solution of visualization problems. Such efforts are already underway by working with computer graphics faculty on selected scientific visualization problems and through collaborations with other University System of Georgia Colleges. With the rapid growth in computer graphics faculty and the academic program in computer graphics and visualization in the GVU Center, the potential for further collaboration in this area is great.


How to Get an Account.

SciVis Lab accounts require the sponsorship and signature of a Georgia Tech faculty member. You will be able to access all of the systems in the SciVis Lab, which includes all SGI workstations, as well as the GVU resources (Sun workstations, Mac and NT).

To obtain a SciVis Lab account, complete the Georgia Tech Research Computing Account Application available outside CoC 210 or in room 327 of the Rich Computer Center. Return the completed form to Rich 327, building code 0710.

For questions regarding SciVis Lab accounts, please contact the acting lab manager at mary.trauner@oit.gatech.edu or CoC help at help@cc.gatech.edu


Help.

There are many ways of getting help in the SciVis Lab:

We recommend asking questions electronically (i.e. E-mail and USENET news) to expose the question and answer to many people as possible. Listed below are the e-mail addresses to use when asking questions electronically.

		
Send mail to: Description
------------------------------ ------------------------------------
gt9349b@prism.gatech.edu Xiaofeng Guo, GRA
gt7359a@prism.gatech.edu Kasemchart Sriwalai, GRA
mary.trauner@oit.gatech.edu Mary Trauner, acting manager
help@cc.gatech.edu Graphics, Visualization and Usability questions

There are Lab Support GRAs in the GVU Lab, SciVis Lab, Video Lab,and the CRB Lab (located in the Centennial Research Building). They are only available during certain times, however. Their schedules are posted in the respective lab areas.


Mailing Lists.

A lot of communication at the SciVis Center is accomplished with e-mail. Currently there are no mailing lists, so direct questions, comments or suggestions to the email addresses listed above.