Prof C. Paul Bonnington

From Monash Memo:

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.

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The Monash e-Research Centre unveiled a new 40 megapixel OptiPortal — a tiled LCD wall that displays complete microscope images at a high resolution.

The screen, the result of an ARC collaborative grant between Monash and Leica Microsystems, allows the user to focus on details at maximum resolution while also allowing them to view the entire image.

Separate and related images can be shown on all or on some screens, or a single image can be displayed across the entire OptiPortal wall.

“A growing world-wide ‘OptiPortal collaboratory’ could revolutionise cancer research by connecting experts from across the world, enabling them to work together on a single project,” Professor Bonnington said.

Visiting Professor Larry Smarr, founding director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, San Diego, said high-performance internet connectivity in Australia was necessary to ensure a robust public research sector.

Data Management can mean different things in different research domains. The tools and methods for managing data in high-energy physics may appear to have no relationship with the data needs of the social scientists. But there are common elements, and a national strategy can focus on those that permeate the many domains in research.

Here I’ve attempted to highlight the many various dimensions to data management and provide further references to some relevant technologies and examples, starting with the core common infrastructure working down to where there are domain-specifics tools and methods. Read more »