HPCwire: University of Houston Builds 8 Megapixel Stereoscopic Visualization Theatre

The Leading Source for Global News and Information Covering the Ecosystem of High Productivity Computing

HPCwire >> Off the Wire

May 06, 2008

University of Houston Builds 8 Megapixel Stereoscopic Visualization Theatre

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa, May 6 -- To advance its mission of fostering and supporting collaborative interdisciplinary research, education and training, the Texas Learning & Computation Center (TLC2) contracted with Mechdyne Corporation to design and build a 34-seat visualization theatre with 8 Megapixel (MP) stereographic projection. The new theater provides all of the academic departments of the University of Houston, as well as partners from the community and industry, with the ability to collaboratively view and work with complex data and computer generated imagery.

"While our first generation visualization laboratory was set up as a working space for individuals or small groups, the new theater is designed to provide unique capability for both researchers and developers of rich graphics imagery to share data and images," said Erick Engquist, manager of the Visualization Laboratory. "In addition to the traditional fields that utilize computer visualization, such as medical imaging, molecular dynamics and geophysical sciences, the theater will enable faculty and students in our schools of architecture and fine arts to share their work in new and exciting ways."

Located in the TLC2 facility on the University of Houston campus, the new theater provides state-of-the-art large-scale immersive visualization capability based on Mechdyne's Beacon stereographic projection technology. The PowerWall 4K-S system includes two theater-quality Sony SXRD digital projectors each with a resolution of 4096 x 2160. Mechdyne's patented Beacon technology electronically shutters the two projectors to generate distinct left and right eye viewpoints, which are perceived as active stereoscopic images on an impressive 9 x 18.5 ft screen. Beacon is the only technology that can create high quality active stereo with these ultra-high resolution projectors. To make the imagery even more realistic, a real-time motion tracking system enables users to move freely in front of the screen and interact with the virtual images as if they were real objects. The display is driven by a 4-node PC cluster.

Mechdyne hosted the first in a series of open house demonstrations at the Visualization Laboratory on April 30 and May 1.

Founded in 1999, the TLC2 is the University of Houston's hub for advanced computing resources, providing computing and communications infrastructure for campus and community collaboration. TLC2 also is the lead organization for the Research and Education Network of Houston (RENoH), a fiber optic network supporting collaboration between the University of Houston, Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Medical Center.

About Mechdyne Corporation

Mechdyne Corporation is the world's largest company dedicated to consulting and development of immersive, networked and collaborative visualization systems. The company addresses complex projects where an in-depth understanding of user requirements leads to the development of products and customized solutions involving elements of visual, software and support systems. Mechdyne's product divisions provide advanced display technology, audio/visual systems design, and implementation services, as well as immersive and interactive software development and support. Headquartered in Marshalltown, Iowa, Mechdyne's customers include leading government laboratories, military research programs, energy companies and a variety of 'edutainment,' manufacturing, and other users of visualization technology. More information is available at www.mechdyne.com.

-----

Source: Mechdyne Corporation

Article Tools

Share Options

(Digg, Technorati, more)

Subscribe

Subscribe to HPCwire

Discussion

There are 0 discussion items posted.

Join the Discussion

You must be a registered user in order to comment on HPCwire stories.

Members enjoy:

	Access to Special Content, including Podcasts, Webcasts, and Whitepapers and more!
	Ability to take an active role in the discussions that are shaping the HPC technology discipline!
	Special offers available only to HPCwire members!

Become a Registered User Today!

Registered Users Log in Here to Comment

Email Address:	Password (case sensitive)

Remember me	Forgot Password?

RSS Feeds

Feeds by Topic

Feeds by Industry

Feeds by Content Type

Feature Articles

The Week in Review

TACC's Ranger supercomputer celebrates its second year of enabling important research; Microsoft partners with NSF to bring cloud services to researchers; and NSF submits its fiscal year 2011 budget request. We recap those stories and more in our weekly wrapup.
Read More...

NASA Looks to Move Science Apps Into the Cloud

It seems only natural that the US space agency would be casting its eyes toward the clouds. Sure enough, NASA is now looking to cloud computing to optimize the operation of the agency's IT infrastructure for some of its science codes. Like many commercial businesses and government organizations, NASA is being asked to do more computing with fewer datacenter resources.
Read More...

Thoughts, Observations, Beliefs & Opinions About the NSF Supercomputer Centers

There is no such thing as an NSF (Supercomputer) Center and there never has been. There should be. What there are, in the words of Ed Hayes, then comptroller of NSF, are "NSF ASSISTED Supercomputer Centers." This is a double edged sword.
Read More...

Read more HPCwire features...

Top Headlines

IBM Releases Energy Efficient Power7 System

Feb 09 | eWeek Europe | Company says new high-end servers will deliver "intelligent performance." Read more...

Inductive Coupling Packs Flash Drive in a Chip

Feb 09 | EE Times | Wireless technology promises energy-efficient chip-to-chip communication. Read more...

IBM, Microsoft Help Create Montana Supercomputer

Feb 08 | eWeek | A new kind of Rocky Mountain high. Read more...

AMD Aims for GPUs in Mainstream Servers Starting 2012

Feb 08 | Computerworld | Chip maker hopes to bring CPU-GPU processors to servers in two years. Read more...

Graphene Transistors That Work at Blistering Speeds

Feb 05 | Technology Review | IBM has created graphene transistors that leave silicon ones in the dust. Read more...

Read more headlines...

Featured Whitepapers

Virtualization for Aggregation And The vSMP Architecture™

Jan 12 | | In-depth look at vSMP Foundation server virtualization technology, technical implementation, use cases and capabilities. The technical whitepaper provides an architectural overview and details on the three vSMP Foundation products: vSMP Foundation for SMP, vSMP Foundation for Cluster and vSMP Foundation for Cloud.

Copper Cable Technologies for High Performance Computing

Jan 18 | | This white paper discusses Gore’s copper cable assemblies, and how they continue to exceed the standards for providing reliable, cost-effective solutions for high-performance computer applications.

Appro Assists LLNL with Cluster Designed for Extreme Scale Visualization

Jan 11 | | LLNL is home to some of the fastest computers in the world. In 2012, LLNL expects to have the Sequoia supercomputing cluster operational with a projected performance of over 20 PFLOP/s. These systems will focus on strengthening the foundations of predictive simulation through running large suites of complex simulations and then comparing model predictions with experimental data. To visualize this project’s large amount of data, LLNL requested an Appro Supercomputing Cluster specifically designed to support interactive data analysis.

View the White Paper Library

Multimedia

Webcast: Virtualized Data Center Roundtable

Join this online panel discussion for live Q&A with leading industry experts, analysts, and end-users to discuss the latest innovations, best practices, barriers to implementation, and measurable benefits of server virtualization with a particular focus on today's real world solutions.

Webcast: Watch SC09 Birds of a Feather Video: Scalable Fault-Tolerant HPC Supercomputers

Learn about scalable fault-tolerant architectures and examples of energy efficient and scalable supercomputing clusters using dual QDR InfiniBand to combine capacity computing with network failover capabilities with the help of programming languages such as MPI and a robust Linux cluster management package.

Webcast: High Performance Computing for a Smarter Planet

LIVE@SCO9: The IBM team discusses new innovations in hardware, software and services that help clients better understand their workloads and get insight from their R&D efforts. Technology demonstrations include the soon-to-be-released Power7 HPC processor, the DCS990 system with 2.4 petabytes of storage, the xCAT management tool, secure HPC cloud computing and more. Winners of two HPCwire Readers' and Editors’ Choice Awards! Take the IBM virtual tour at SC09 or more information go online to: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/deepcomputing/sc09.html