The VUW OptIPortal
Welcome to New Zealand's first OptIPortal. An OptIPortal is a visualization cluster. Functionally, OptIPortals are tiled displays, that is, many displays capable of acting as one or many virtual displays. OptIPortals can be used in a wide variety of visualization approaches; viewing high definition static images, video, or in streaming mode across one or more OptIPortals. OptIPortals can also be used for video conferencing and collaboration with other OptIPortals or other compatible devices (laptops, H.323 conferencing devices, etc.).
Victoria's OptIPortal facility consists of twelve screens arranged in a 4x3 display (see the pictures below). Each individual display is 2560x1600 pixels. This gives a combined display of 10240x4800 pixels. It is easiest to think of this as a single display that can manage multiple windows just the same as your desktop. Thus it is possible to view a single large image or to simultaneously view a window showing a collaborator at a remote site (a video conference) and one or more windows displaying data that are shared with the same remote site. The facility is currently running
Rocks for cluster management and
SAGE to manage the graphics display.
Introducing the OptIPortal
On Friday, 17 October, the OptIPortal was introduced to Victoria's researchers. The programme featured researchers from different disciplines. The aim of the afternoon session was to explore the different ways in which the OptIPortal can be used to support research. Following are several examples from the afternoon.
Steven Mills from the Geospatial Research Centre at Canterbury prepared an aerial image of state highway six south of Motueka that used the full resolution of the OptIPortal. This was the first time that Steven had viewed the entire image at full resolution. Steven also had various spatial maps of Christchurch city coloured to represent the altitude above sea level and the expected solar radiation. The large screen enabled the entire highway or city to be viewed at once.
Kate McGrath from SCPS and MacDiarmid had a number of images from the electron microscope. While Steven's images had been measured in kilometers Kate's were measured in nanometers. Kate showed how the high resolution enabled details of the surface of materials to be studied.
Diana Burton from classics introduced the use of the OptIPortal in the arts. She had images of a vase held by classics and an annotated manuscript of the Iliad. Normally she is not able to view more than a small portion of a page of the manuscript and be able to read it. Using the OptIPortal the full page and annotations are visible and the text is sufficiently magnified to be read.
Denis Sullivan displayed images of the sky as seen from Mt John and other telescopes. Denis explained how he uses gravitational lensing to locate new objects in the heavens.
Martha Savage and a group of geophysists rounded out the afternoon with a variety of images. Shown here is a series of images of earthquake events at a Japanese volcano. Rather than using the OptIPortal to display a large image Martha has used it to display multiple images side by side for comparison.
-- hine - 19 Oct 2008
Steven Mills from the Geospatial Research Centre at Canterbury prepared an aerial image of state highway six south of Motueka that used the full resolution of the OptIPortal. This was the first time that Steven had viewed the entire image at full resolution. Steven also had various spatial maps of Christchurch city coloured to represent the altitude above sea level and the expected solar radiation. The large screen enabled the entire highway or city to be viewed at once.
Kate McGrath from SCPS and MacDiarmid had a number of images from the electron microscope. While Steven's images had been measured in kilometers Kate's were measured in nanometers. Kate showed how the high resolution enabled details of the surface of materials to be studied.
Diana Burton from classics introduced the use of the OptIPortal in the arts. She had images of a vase held by classics and an annotated manuscript of the Iliad. Normally she is not able to view more than a small portion of a page of the manuscript and be able to read it. Using the OptIPortal the full page and annotations are visible and the text is sufficiently magnified to be read.
Denis Sullivan displayed images of the sky as seen from Mt John and other telescopes. Denis explained how he uses gravitational lensing to locate new objects in the heavens.
Martha Savage and a group of geophysists rounded out the afternoon with a variety of images. Shown here is a series of images of earthquake events at a Japanese volcano. Rather than using the OptIPortal to display a large image Martha has used it to display multiple images side by side for comparison.
-- hine - 19 Oct 2008 
EResearch
