April 19 — NCSA is helping produce movie magic with cinematic scientific visualization.

The Advanced Visualization Laboratory (AVL) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently worked on A Beautiful Planet, the latest 3D space documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Toni Myers and IMAX Entertainment, made in cooperation with NASA, which premiered in New York City on Saturday, April 16 at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13.

AVL, led by Director Donna Cox, helped produce the opening and closing scenes of A Beautiful Planet. Cox served as visualization producer and designer on the NCSA scenes of the film. AVL previously worked with Toni Myers and the IMAX team to create scientific visualizations for the award-winning IMAX documentary, Hubble 3D, from Warner Bros. Pictures and IMAX Entertainment (2010).

AVL has a long history of producing cinematic scientific visualizations for full-dome planetarium shows, television documentaries, feature film and IMAX documentary films.

A Beautiful Planet is a 46-minute film documentary that gives moviegoers a never-before-seen glimpse of Earth from space and provides an increased understanding of our planet and galaxy. In cooperation with NASA, the movie captures footage filmed by the astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

AVL team produced 6 minutes and 20 seconds of visualization, including two dramatic astrophysical voyages: the opening journey into the Milky Way galaxy to the location of our Sun and the closing scene, a flight from the International Space Station to the Earth-like exoplanet K-186f, nearly 500 light years away from Earth.

“There’s no place like Earth, and the movie tries to capture that truth,” said Cox. “We used a virtual camera, advanced computing, and scientific data to provide a unique voyage to a planetary system in our galaxy far away. NCSA’s AVL focuses on scientific accuracy while cinematically presenting data.”

AVL team that worked on the film includes: Robert Patterson (visualization designer/camera), Stuart Levy (visualization/astronomy), AJ Christensen (visualization design/effects), and Kalina Borkiewicz (visualization development).

NCSA welcomed the IMAX production team—Myers (Producer/Director), Judy Carroll (Co-Producer), and Hugh Murray (Stereographer)—to NCSA on two occasions, along with astronomer Dr. Frank Summers from the Space Telescope Science Institute, to develop the concept and treatment for NCSA’s contribution to the film. The team used AVL’s 4,096-pixel 3D stereo virtual environment and visualization software to collaboratively design the scenes for the IMAX screen. Then they employed their advanced computing environment to develop and refine the 4,096×2,880 resolution IMAX 3D scenes. In the end, AVL delivered over 9,000 stereoscopic image pairs for the film.

“It was a great collaboration,” said Patterson. “NCSA was able to provide the IMAX audience with immersive 3D visualization journeys using a host of scientific data to help viewers understand our place in the Milky Way galaxy.”

The film will be shown to the public exclusively in IMAX and IMAX 3D theaters beginning April 29.

About NCSA

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a hub of transdisciplinary research and digital scholarship where University of Illinois faculty, staff, and students, and collaborators from around the globe, unite to address research grand challenges for the benefit of science and society. Current research focus areas are Bioinformatics and Health Sciences, Computing and Data Sciences, Culture and Society, Earth and Environment, Materials and Manufacturing, and Physics and Astronomy.

The Center also provides integrated cyberinfrastructure—computing, data, networking, and visualization resources and expertise that are essential to the work of scientists, engineers, and scholars at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and across the country. NCSA is also an engine of economic impact for the state and the nation, helping companies address computing and data challenges and providing hands-on training for undergraduate and graduate students and post-docs.

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Source: NCSA