Vis5D, volsh, and Viz Theater
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by Brian Bevirt Sharing visualization technology with users is a priority for the Visualization Group. Effective dissemination of new techniques requires usability, and VG staff have refined and published two of their visualization tools for the user community: volsh, a high-performance, high-quality volume-visualization environment that makes effective use of parallel computational resources across networks, and NCAR extensions to Vis5D. An NCAR version of the popular Vis5D package, developed to address NCAR science, was released to researchers interested in using virtual reality techniques to study complex phenomena in the atmosphere. This VG product provides an effective data exploration tool that incorporates stereo/3D virtual capability, very large file support, and output of VRML and other scene description languages. Outreach is one of the VG's top priorities, and the development of its mobile arm, the Visualization Theater (VT), has enhanced NCAR's ability to communicate atmospheric science to scientific and nonscientific audiences around the world. Over the course of the last year, the VT has made appearances at numerous conferences including Supercomputing, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, and the Coalition for National Science Funding. The Visualization Lab's new prototype environment, the Earth System Web, has been demonstrated at Next-Generation Internet and Internet2 events on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. VG staff were even invited to demo the Earth System Web at the Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile. Additional examples of the lab's visibility include El Niño and La Niña visualizations that appeared in the 1998 Time magazine special on El Niño. The same visualizations were presented by Peter Jennings on ABC World News Tonight. Visualizations of forest fire simulations were recently shown on Denver's Channel 4 news.
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