3D animation of Hurricane Katrina.
Image Courtesy Atul Nayak, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Visualization Center, UCSD |
3D animation of the Katrina hurricane displayed on the 50 million pixel 'iCluster' system
at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.
The 'iCluster' is a visualization system that offers a resolution of up to 50 million pixels
for the exploration of Earth sciences datasets. The iCluster consists of 12 30" Apple
Cinema displays arranged in a three by four grid and powered by a cluster of 7 Apple PowerMac
G5 machines. The system is used to monitor real-time streams of data collected by seismic,
coastal and environmental sensor networks. This image shows an animation of the 2005 Katrina
hurricane as it approaches New Orleans. The visualization was created by the Center for
Computation and Technology, Lousiana State University (for more on the hurricane
visualization see http://www.lcat.lsu.edu/katrina.php).
The iCluster project is funded by the National Science Foundation EarthScope
program’s USArray Network Facility and Real-time Observatories, Applications
and Data Management Network at Scripps/UCSD, with the
collaboration of UCSD’s California Institute for Telecommunications and Information
Technology. The system uses the Scalable Adaptive Graphics
Environment, or SAGE, software designed for the NSF-funded OptIPuter project by the Electronic
Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Follow the links to learn more about the iCluster,
SAGE and
OptIPuter.
—Atul Nayak, UCSD
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