News (2007 2nd Quarter - Archive)

Wednesday 13 June 2007

WASP Seminar Series

Wednesday 13 June 2007, 4pm

Antarctica Virtua: Cultural Heritage Applications and Computer Visualisation

Dr Peter Morse
Communications Studies, The University of Western Australia

Abstract

Antarctica Virtua (see http://www.antarcticavirtua.net) is a ongoing cultural-heritage visualisation project that I have undertaken at the University of Melbourne, the University of Western Australia and as an independent researcher. The aim is to create an immersive stereoscopic VR reconstruction of the Cape Denison area, Antarctica, where Sir Douglas Mawson established his base camp for the 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition. The project utilises a mixture of historical and contemporary visualisation resources.

The project affords a case-study of the prospects and problems of computer-based visualisation for cultural heritage applications, as it draws upon a wide variety of software approaches - GIS, CAD, 3D computer graphics (real-time and pre-rendered), photogrammetry, digital reconstruction/restoration processes, stereoscopy, projection techniques and so forth. Inter-relating computer visualisation and data-based resources with modalities of user interaction present interesting new challenges to be explored.

Peter Morse has a diverse background in semiotics, fine arts, digital design, audiovisual production and computing. He has worked variously as a 3D/2D computer animator, videographer and editor, database designer and programmer, website designer, multimedia programmer, exhibition curator and so forth. Since the early 1980's he has created computer-controlled audio-visual works combining musical/audial/operatic performance and computer-aided visualisation.

He has an extensive scholarly and professional background in semiotics, visual semiotics, communication studies, history and theory of digital culture and new media, art history and design theory, as well as wide professional experience in production environments. He is a Lecturer in Communication Studies at the University of Western Australia and in Digital Media at the University of Melbourne.

In late 2005 he was awarded the Australian Antarctic Division's Antarctic Arts Fellowship, enabling him to spend two months during the summer of 2006 travelling around Antarctica shooting a stereoscopic movie and stereoscopic resources for Antarctica Virtua (http://www.antarcticavirtua.net).

His current interests revolve around visualisation for (semi) immersive virtual environments and exploring developmental and representational processes for cultural heritage and scientific datasets deployed in humanities and informational contexts (eg visualisation centres, museums, planetaria, galleries, on-line, mobile platforms). He has an on-going intellectual interest in the relationship between the sciences and arts and the role of semiotic approaches as a methodology for reconciling these diverse disciplines.

The WASP is located in the south wing, on the Ground floor of Physics.

Wednesday 9 May 2007

WASP Seminar Series

Wednesday 9 May 2007, 4pm

Design Considerations for a Real-time Collaborative Virtual Sculpting Application

Anthony Prior, PhD Candidate
School of Computer Science & Software Engineering / WASP

Abstract

Volumetric virtual sculpting allows the creation of 3D artistic sculptures or prototypes in Virtual Reality through use of a tool controlled by a 3D input device to alter the density of voxels within a volumetric dataset.

The methods by which this is done can also be extended to other domains such as virtual surgery (in particular bone drilling simulations) and 3D data exploration. Collaborative virtual sculpting extends this application to allow multiple users, possibly at remote locations, to cooperatively work on a sculpture. This introduces new problems concerned with keeping the local versions of the voxel dataset on each node synchronized in as close to real-time as possible, such as network bandwidth limitations and the balance of computational load, particularly when visualizing the dataset. This seminar presents the design and implementation of a collaborative virtual sculpting simulation and discusses methods to address the problems stated.

Anthony Prior is a computer science graduate currently in his last year of PhD at the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering at the University of Western Australia in association with iVEC and WASP. His work is based on virtual sculpting, visualization, haptics and collaborative virtual environments. Prior to this, Anthony completed Honours in 2002, where his project was on parallel image processing. In addition to his PhD work, Anthony has interests in game development and computer graphics. Anthony has been funded by a University Postgraduate Award and an additional WAIDS (iVEC) scholarship.

WASP Seminar Series

Wednesday 9 May 2007, 4.30pm

Next Generation Computing: General Purpose Computation using Graphics Hardware

Chris Harris
The University of Western Australia

Abstract

Driven by the goal of real-time photorealistic rendering, the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) has achieved a growth in computational power equivalent to Moore’s law cubed. The resulting programmability, functionality, and high speed of GPUs make them a viable co-processor for accelerating general purpose application functions such as basic linear algebra subprograms (BLAS) and the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). GPU implementations of these applications have shown that the GPU outperforms the CPU at a variety of parallel vector or matrix processing problems. This seminar will provide a general introduction to the GPU; covering its computational potential, the hardware architecture, and available programming APIs.

Chris Harris is a PhD Student from the School of Physics at The University of Western Australia. His previous research applied the GPU to the fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm, improving the performance by a factor of two. The current focus of his research investigates the application of GPUs to real-time signal processing. Specifically, he is investigating the use of the GPU to accelerate the hybrid correlation of astronomy data for the next generation of radio telescopes.

The WASP is located in the south wing, on the Ground floor of Physics. 

Monday 28 May 2007

WASP Workshop: Introduction to MPI
A/Prof Karen Haines, Director, WASP

4 Days, 28 May 2007 to 31 May 2007 (2pm to 5pm)

Registration is required - Please register online now at http://www.wasp.uwa.edu.au/home/news/registration

MPI was developed for high performance computing on both massively parallel machines and on workstation clustres. WASP will hold a 4 day workshop on "Introduction to MPI". Topics such as Non Blocking Communication, Virtual Topologies Timings, MPI Message Point to Point, Derived Data Types, Error Handling Restartm and Visualization - OpenDX will be covered during the workshop.

Friday 13 April 2007

WASP Workshop: Introduction to Cray XT3 - Marron

Friday 13 April 2007, 2pm to 4pm

Jason Tan, WASP

Registration is required - Please register online now at http://www.wasp.uwa.edu.au/home/news/registration

The Cray XT3 system offers a new level of scalable computing where:

1. a single powerful computing system handles the most complex problems
2. every component is engineered to run massively parallel computing applications reliably to completion
3. the operating system and management system are tightly integrated and designed for ease of operation at massive scale scalable performance analysis and debugging tools allow for rapid testing and fine tuning of applications
4. highly scalable global I/O performance ensures high efficiency for applications that require rapid I/O access for large datasets

The workshop is a requirement for all XT3 users. Topics such as Introduction to Marron - Logging in, PBS Job Script, how to submit a job, XT3 Job Monitoring Commands, different Queues on Marron and xtpbs Job commands will be covered during the workshop.

Wednesday 11 April 2007

WASP Seminar Series

Wednesday 11 April 2007, 4pm

Optimizing I/O Using the Lustre Cluster File System

Phil Schwan, iVEC

Abstract

WASP's "Marron" supercomputer, like all Cray XT3, provides access to its entire storage array using the Lustre cluster file system.  And while the I/O system is capable of very high performance, the unique design characteristics of the XT3 require special considerations from all developers and users.  Treating it like a standard Linux cluster will only get you so far.  You must take specific steps to get the most from Marron's parallel I/O subsystem.

This one-hour seminar will cover:

 A short, general introduction to Lustre
 How the system design influenced the XT3 implementation of Lustre
 How Lustre on XT3 is different from Lustre on any other supercomputer
 How to get the best I/O performance as a developer or user
 What to avoid and why

Phil Schwan, is a leading American expert on open source business, successful software development and high performance computing. As the former Chief Executive and co-founder of Cluster File Systems, Inc., Phil co-developed its award-winning open-source Lustre file system, now used on the majority of the world’s largest Linux supercomputers.

With support from iVEC, Phil is visiting with local researchers to share his knowledge on incorporating open source into business models, advanced software engineering processes, and effective HPC solutions.

The WASP is located in the south wing, on the Ground floor of Physics.