3D may be hot in Hollywood thanks to recent box-office smashes such as Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, but for Monash University the technology will assist researchers and students to achieve new levels of understanding of complex data.

3D ALIVE (Applied Laboratory for Immersive Visualisation Environments) was launched on 1 July at Monash University’s Clayton campus by Deputy Secretary of the Victorian Department of Primary Industries, Dr Richard Aldous.

The 3D ALIVE facility consists of a 3D stereo display achieved from dual rear projection, plus a real-time motion tracking headset, providing a powerful virtual reality work space in which the user can stand and manipulate a 3D data model in real-time using a wand.

“3D ALIVE will allow students and researchers across science, medicine, engineering and other disciplines to immerse, explore, question and evaluate endless scientific concepts, no matter how complex,” said Professor Louis Moresi, who along with Dr Margarete Jadamec helped to establish the facility.

“Geoscientists will be able to explore massive spatially varying data volumes, such as global models of earthquake hypocenters, from a perspective which places the viewer inside a 3D Earth … as demonstrated at the launch,” said Facility Manager Dr Margarete Jadamec.

“Unlike simply viewing a 3D movie, the user is able to quite literally ’step inside’ the large digital model of the earth, and examine movement in the subduction zones of 100km-thick tectonic plates, for example.”

Vice-Chancellor Professor Ed Byrne said he was delighted to host the launch of the project together with CSIRO Group Executive, Manufacturing, Materials and Minerals, Dr Steve Morton, and believes the initiative will deliver significant benefits to both Monash University and its partners. Dr Morton also praised the ongoing partnership between the CSIRO and Monash University.

The launch was well-attended by representatives, researchers and students from the partners in the project including the CSIRO, AuScope, Monash Geodynamics, School of Mathematical Sciences, School of Geosciences and the Monash e-Research Centre. The project also involved overseas collaboration with W. M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES) at the University of California, Davis USA.

The 3D ALIVE facility is designed for groups of two to 15 people and will be open for researchers collaborating on 3D models for presentations requiring 3D data rendering and for laboratory style teaching.

For further information, please visit the 3D ALIVE website.

Monash University is partnering with some of the country’s leading technology providers and research institutions to establish an advanced image processing facility that will enable scientists to create, view and analyse high-resolution scientific images and 3D-models previously too large to visualise.

The Multi-modal Australian Sciences Imaging and Visualisation Environment, to be known as MASSIVE, is the first facility of its kind in Australia and will open in August 2010.

It will be funded by the Australian Government through the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), the Victorian Government’s Department of Innovation Industry and Regional Development (DIIRD) and the project partners. It will host high-performance computers and graphic technologies to quickly reconstruct and display data-dense 2D, 3D and 3D-plus images from the new-generation instruments in the Clayton precinct and beyond.

Agreements involving all major partners, including Monash University, NCI (hosted by ANU), CSIRO, the Australian Synchrotron, the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing, and DIIRD, were completed this week.

Monash University e-Research Centre Director Professor Paul Bonnington said the facility would offer researchers from a range of fields, including biomedicine, astronomy, engineering, geoscience and climate studies, unparalleled capacities to construct and view visualisations of the objects of their investigations.

“The size of images produced by detectors in the new generation of Australian imaging instruments is growing at a phenomenal pace. For example, the Australian Synchrotron ‘Imaging and Therapies Beamline’ will be capable of producing 128GB-volume images, but without this new facility there would be no way to reconstruct or view them at full resolution in an acceptable period of time.

“Large-volume imaging capabilities are central to the scientific enterprise, and for this reason the new facility at the Clayton precinct will greatly boost Australia’s ability to process, visualise and understand scientific phenomena,” Professor Bonnington said.

“For researchers investigating Alzheimer’s disease, for example, the ability to see and analyse high resolution visuals of the cerebral cortex of the brain and its surrounds, will clearly make a huge difference. Doctors studying cancer will be able to look at and analyse visualisations of a tumour in a patient, in close to real-time.”

The MASSIVE facility will provide specialist expertise in visualisation, helping researchers to graphically reconstruct experimental data and utilise visualisation tools, including libraries, to analyse and support their inquiries.

Monash University Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Edwina Cornish said MASSIVE would provide cutting-edge capabilities and supporting expertise for the diverse array of research and education activities carried out at Monash, within the Clayton precinct and across Australia.

For more information call Professor Paul Bonnington +61 3 990 20711 or Jane Castles, Media and Communications, on +61 3 9903 4842 or 0417 568 781.

Monash researchers have developed a revolutionary online data management program that is being used by scientists at the Australian Synchrotron and exported to institutions around the world.

The MyTARDIS/TARDIS program solves a global research data collection and management challenge.

Developed by biochemist Associate Professor Ashley Buckle and software engineer Steve Androulakis, the program gives researchers a place where they can securely store research information. It also provides, via the internet, the opportunity to share the most complex of scientific data.

“The program records the data generated from an experiment, catalogues it, making it searchable, and transfers it back to the home institution, where the researcher can analyse the data using MyTARDIS, then make it publicly available on the TARDIS system alongside publication of the results in a scientific journal,” Associate Professor Ashley Buckle said.

“Before MyTARDIS, if I was using a synchrotron, I had to lug an external hard-drive to the facility with me to save my data. That could be a trip across the road to the Australian synchrotron at Clayton, but if the research was conducted overseas, precious raw data had to be carried back through airports and in luggage. If anything happened to that hard-drive, more than a year’s worth of work could be lost forever.”

The MyTARDIS/TARDIS software, which took two years to develop, also solves the problem for researchers of how best to share their data.

“Trying to upload and download images and complex information over the internet is time consuming and fraught with failure. Our software has created a central place where researchers can exchange information rapidly and securely. Sharing data with colleagues from around the world is an essential aspect of modern day research, and technology use is integral to our success.”

The project has been developed with the support of the Monash e-Research Centre (MeRC), the Victorian e-Research Strategic initiative (VeRSI), the Australian Synchrotron and the Australian National Data Service (ANDS).

MeRC director Professor Paul Bonnington said the project required software engineer Steve Androulakis to work side by side with the scientists in the laboratories and believes this project is just the beginning for further collaboration between science and technology, which will open up a whole new world of possibilities for researchers.

“Embedding software developers in laboratories with scientists is a practice that the Centre is now employing across the University in a number of disciplines. Software developers like Steve will continue working for MeRC under funding provided by ANDS to do similar projects,” Professor Bonnington said.

“The correct technological tools needed to be developed for scientists to continue delivering cutting edge research outcomes. The TARDIS project has shown that the most effective way of achieving positive outcomes is to have the people who are developing the technologies situated at the coal face.”

For more information contact Samantha Blair, Media and Communications + 61 3 9903 4841 or 0439 013 951.

The largest group ever of UC San Diego undergraduates in the Pacific Rim Undergraduate Experiences (PRIME) program — 33 — has embarked on a nine-week summer adventure: working as researchers in laboratories across the Pacific Rim and India. They left for their destinations last week.

Five of the PRIME participants have arrived at Monash to work under the mentorship of Monash e-Research Centre Science Director Prof David Abramson.

THEY call it the “data deluge”.

The next five years will produce more research data than has been produced in all of previous human history, presenting researchers with daunting discovery challenges.

…

Dr Wilkinson made the comments with the announcement that Monash, the CSIRO and the Australian National University would host a $20million service aimed at better managing the data deluge generated by years of research and advances in technology.

Full Article: Interview with Ross Wilkinson, executive director of the Monash University-based Australian National Data Service.