Scientific Visualization Research Labs

We have developed the list (below) of labs that conduct research relevant to our work in scientific visualization. If you notice labs not here that deserve mention for us, please contact judyc AT evergreen DOT edu. Thanks!

  1. Earth, Energy, and Environment section of Microsoft Research Connections (MRC).  Rob Fatland and Kristin Tolle work on applications of technology to information challenges in environmental science. Their work has included research in glacier dynamics and seismically-driven surface deformation based on satellite data as well as  embedded systems technology, wireless sensor networks for harsh environments. At MSR he works to release research tools such as Layerscape (a collaboration-visualization system), ChronoZoom climate change applications, and SciScope (a search engine for hydrology data) for adoption and use by both academic and operational geoscience communities.
  2. GeoVISTA Center, Penn State Universit, focuses on geographic data; they “conduct and coordinate integrated and innovative research in GIScience, covering a broad range of domains from spatial cognition, through formal geo-information representation, to spatial analysis, cartography and visual analytics.”
  3. iVRL – Interdisciplinary Visualization Research Lab, University of Pittsburgh.
  4. Lawrence Berkeley Labs (and others?)
  5. VisIt.  Begun in 2000, VisIt was developed by the Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Simulation and Computing Initiative (ASCI) to visualize and analyze the results of terascale simulations; it is now maintained at Lawrence Livermore.  VisIt is a free interactive parallel visualization and graphical analysis tool for viewing scientific data on Unix and PC platforms. Users can generate visualizations from their data, animate them through time, manipulate them, and save the resulting images for presentations. VisIt contains a rich set of visualization features to view data in a variety of ways. It can be used to visualize scalar and vector fields defined on two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) structured and unstructured meshes. VisIt was designed to handle very large data set sizes in the terascale range but can also handle small data sets in the kilobyte range.
  6. NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio.
  7. Texas Advanced Computer Center, Visualization Lab (VisLab), University of Texas.
  8. Lloyd A. Treinish, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center.    Treinish has done some terrific fundamental work, and his web site deserves some time.  For example, the IBM Data Explorer (which morphed into OpenDX) was one of his projects.  In addition, he has worked on some perceptual rules, particularly regarding color, and worked on a rule-based advisory tool for designing colormaps: PRAVDA for Perceptual Rule-based Architecture for Visualizing Data Accurately.  See also Mike’s OpenDX Class Notes from 2007.
  9. The University Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) has developed and supports several Scientific Visualization systems, including:  VAPOR (Visualization and Analysis Platform for Ocean, Atmosphere, and Solar Researchers), which provides interactive 3D visualization on UNIX and Windows systems with 3D graphics cards, handling terascale data for WRF-ARW datasets and McIDAS (Man computer Interactive Data Access System), an open source tool for visualizing multi-and hyper-spectral satellite data (developed jointly by UCAR and University of Wisconsin?).
  10. University of Utah, Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute (SCI).
  11. HCIL projects in Temporal Visualization  (Human-Computer Interaction lab, University of Maryland).  See video by Monroe, M., Wongsuphasawat, K., Plaisant, C., Shneiderman, B., Millstein, J., Gold, S. (April 2012), Exploring Point and Interval Event Patterns: Display Methods and Interactive Visual Query which gives rationale for integrating point and interval events.