The Atlas Visualisation Facility (AVF) offers a wide range of hardware and software solutions that users from the STFC facilities can exploit to help extract the maximum information from their data. It is also able to present data to a larger audience to help in out reach events and the public understanding of science.
AVF has the one and only 3D stereoscopic visualisation wall in Harwell campus, offering interactive 3D immersive visualisation capabilities supported by Ultrasonic hand and wand tracking and interaction devices. These are being used widely in many science and engineering fields, such as automotive, space exploration, civil engineering, to explore and interact with high fidelity 3D images. A spectrum of cutting edge application scenarios are rapidly taking up and exploiting such innovative capabilities, from virtual design and engineering of complex civil engineering structures, such as bridges and nuclear power plants, through to implementation and verification of large scale engineering components, such as aircraft wings and car engines, and to modelling and simulation of autonomous vehicles and future transportation infrastructure.
AVF Open House and Events
AVF is a unique advanced visualisation capability in Harwell Campus. We hold regular show-and-tell events, for engineers, scientists, and companies. You are very welcome to join our open events. If you are interested in hearing about these events, you are very welcome to join the visharwell@jiscmail.ac.uk (visualisation interest group at Harwell).
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Public Access Day 2017
Location: Atlas Visualisation Facility, R27
Time: six sessions between 1000-1600, 10 August 2017
Title: Atlas Visualisation Facility
Speakers/presenters: Sri Nagella, Edoardo Pasca, George Gale, Laurence de Bruxelles
Abstract:
- Visualisation Facility - The Atlas Visualisation Facility enables users from the STFC experiments to extract the maximum information from their data. Using our huge video wall, you will get a chance to manipulate 3D images and even go for a tour around the outside of the International Space Station.
Scientific Computing Open Event - August 2017Location: Atlas Visualisation Facility, R27
Time: 0930-1000, 11 August 2017
Title: Atlas Visualisation Facility - A Special Session for SCD Staff
Speakers/presenters: Sri Nagella, Edoardo Pasca, George Gale
Abstract:
Atlas Visualisation Facility (AVF) situates in the Atlas building (R27), opposite the RAL reception on the other side of the road. Do you know that SCD staff is actually responsible for running it?
AVF has the one and only 3D stereoscopic visualisation wall in Harwell campus, offering interactive 3D immersive visualisation capabilities supported by Ultrasonic hand and wand tracking and interaction devices. These are being used widely in many science and engineering fields, such as automotive, space exploration, civil engineering, to explore and interact with high fidelity 3D images. A spectrum of cutting edge application scenarios are rapidly taking up and exploiting such innovative capabilities, from virtual design and engineering of complex civil engineering structures, such as bridges and nuclear power plants, through to implementation and verification of large scale engineering components, such as aircraft wings and car engines, and to modelling and simulation of autonomous vehicles and future transportation infrastructure.
AVF also has one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) mobile touch screens on campus. Why not come and immerse yourselves in a range of state-of-the-art 3D, VR, and data visualisation capabilities that you cannot find anywhere else at RAL? To celebrate the great success of RAL open day which we have proudly contributed to, we will present you all with extra special treats at the end of the demo sessions. We look forward to see you all at 0930 in AVF!
Hardware
- Display wall with dual WUXGA projectors (1920x1200 each)
- 3D Active stereo display
- 60 Active shutter glasses
- Two Dell R5500 Workstations: Master node to drive display and application node, each with:
- Dual Quad core Intel Xeon X5687 processors
- 48 GBytes ram
- Nvidia Quadro M4000
- Remote VNC connection to master node
- Intersense-IS900 Ultrasonic Tracking system for immersive visualisation provides:
- Head tracking
- Wand tracking and interaction
- 5.1 Surround sound system
- Camera and microphone system for video conference calls
- Easy laptop to display wall connection using Barco WiFi adaptors
- Networking: wireless guest network and STFC connections
- Two high memory workstations:
- Dell precision each with 2x Xeon E5-2650 (8 core/16 threads each)
- 512 GBytes memory
- High end Nvidia Graphics cards
- One Linux (CentOS) and one Windows Server
- Uses include high resolution tomographic reconstruction and analysis
- Two HTC Vive immersive VR head sets
- With high end workstations to drive the displays
- ProWise 86 inch UHD touch screen display for interactive data display
- With high performance workstation to drive display
- Expanding set of high end graphical workstations for 3D analysis and video editing
Software
- Avizo / Amira version 9
- Commercial product with site licence negotiated by VAIS for facilites
- Provides advanced visualisation and quantification for data such as tomographic images
- Supports 3D and head tracking immersive views
- ParaView
- Leading open source visualisation software for 3D data including tomogrphic data, FEA, etc.
- Can display in 3D, with head tracking and (via experimental system) HTC Vive
- VisIT
- Similar visualisation capabilites to ParaView
- Tomviz
- Based on ParaView but optimised for viewing and analysis of tomographic data
- 3D Slicer
- Another tomographic visualisation and analysis package popular for medical data
- Drishti, Drishti Prayog
- Drishti is package for high quality rendering of tomographic or volume data
- Large data sets can be loaded with complex 2D colour maps
- Drishti Prayog provides interactive touch screen based display of data sets
- TechViz
- Commercial product to allow 3D immersive display of most OpenGL packages
- Molecular visualisation tools
- GeoVisionary
- Tool to explore 3D geographical data
- SolidEdge ST5
- SolidEdge CAD models can be viewed in immersive 3D using TechViz
- Unity Pro
- A professional gaming engine which can be used to create environments in VR
- Can be used to import and realistically render scientific data
- Adobe applications for high quality graphics
- Including Illustrator, Photoshop, Premier etc.
