LVis - A Smart Virtual Reality Interface to Digital Libraries
Investigators: Katy Börner and Andrew Dillon, School of Library and Information Science; and Margaret Dolinsky, School of Fine Arts, IUB.
The project Digital Library Visualizer (LVis) aims at the support of the navigation through complex information spaces. It provides a multi-modal, virtual reality interface that maps data stored in digital libraries onto an "information landscape." This landscape can then be explored by human users in a natural manner that will support efficient search through related articles. The 2-D and 3-D prototype visualizes search results from the Indiana University Department of the History of Art Image Bank (see www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/dido).
iUniverse: Creating a Collaborative Information Universe for Indiana University
Investigator: Katy Börner, School of Library and Information Science, IUB
The project aims to establish one of the most sophisticated interface technologies for desktop computers at Indiana University. The technology is a 3-D virtual reality chat and design tool by Activeworlds.com, Inc. The tool allows users to build compelling, multi-modal, multi-user, navigable, collaborative virtual environments in 3-D that are inhabited by avatars acting as placeholders for human users. This technology provides a means for interacting with the objects in the environment with embedded information sources and services, or with other users and visitors of the environment.
During the Fall 2000 semester, students taking the User Interface Design class through the School of Library and Information Science designed different 3-D learning environments in collaboration with IUB faculty. The project resulted in a Natural Disaster Area, a Science House, a Quest Atlantis portal to different theme parks for children, an Art Café, and a Virtual Collaboration area (see ella.slis.Indiana.edu/~katy/iUni).
World-Wide Bioinformatics Data Distribution through Bio-Mirror Project
Investigator: Don Gilbert, Bioinformatics, IUB
A central focus of bioinformatics is managing, analyzing and distilling knowledge from the large and rapidly growing body of data that forms the genetic code of life. The Human Genome Project and related international efforts are on track with unraveling all of this code, resulting in a flood of data.
The Internet is the primary means of distributing this information. The bioinformatic core grows rapidly into hundreds of gigabytes and is frequently updated. Therefore, timely dissemination of the information over the Internet has suffered. The use of high performance network methods to speed this distribution is essential.
For over a decade, Indiana University's IUBio Archive has served the world community of bioscientists with public access to bioinformatics data and software (see iubio.bio.indiana.edu). To help address this need, IUBio Archive co-founded the Bio-Mirror project with the support of the IU High Performance Network Applications Program, and provides rapid public access to an exchange of genome data with bioinformatics centers in Japan, Australia, Singapore, China, Korea and Thailand.
We Think! An Internet2-based Collaborative Learning Tool
Investigators: Bradley Wheeler and George M. Marakas, Information Systems, Kelley School of Business, IUB
The design objective of We Think! is to enable pairs of distributed students to perform collaborative learning exercises through personal control of voice, video and data sharing as effectively as students who are physically sitting beside each other. It also serves as a platform for multi-casting of an instructor. Target users will be paired with international courses (e.g. IUB and Finland or Singapore). Depending on class size, there could be 15 to 40 or more of these concurrent student sessions at any given time, which require the capacities and latency control capabilities of high performance networks (HPN) such as Internet2.
The project has made progress in design work for interface, states, modes of instructor and student operation and scalability. A preliminary Java-based prototype of the paired clients has been tested for audio and video with integration work for other collaborative tools planned for summer.
Indiana Spatial Data Digital Library
Investigator: Anna Radue, Database and GIS Specialist, Teaching and Learning Information Technologies, IUB
The High Performance Network Applications Program (HPNAP) provided initial funding to the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) to develop a spatial data archive using Indiana University's Massive Data Storage System. Data Management Support (DMS), a subunit of Teaching and Learning Information Technologies (TLIT) currently manages the digital archive and supports ongoing development.
This project created an online digital library of high-resolution geographic imagery including the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 1998/99 digital ortho quarter quads (DOQQs) and digital raster graphics (DRGs) for Indiana. A DOQQ is a computer-generated image of an aerial photo that has the geometric properties of a map and the image properties of a photograph. A DRG is a scanned image of a USGS standard series topographic map that is also georeferenced to the surface of the earth.
All files are also available in LizardTech's Multiresolution Seamless Image Database (MrSID) format, a compression format that encodes large image files using wavelet-based algorithms. The MrSID format allows distribution of the DOQQs and DRGs via remote and wireless connections. Currently, the archive has 150 GB of data accessible to anyone via the World Wide Web (see storage.iu.edu/DOQQS).
iVW - International Virtual Workspace
Investigator: Tomas Beauchamp, Environmental Health and Safety Specialist, Department of Environmental Health and Safety, IUB
The international Virtual Workspace (iVW) poster will provide a "snapshot" of the dynamic interaction of Structure, Strategy, and Process variables that contribute to the formation and maintenance of a multi-dimensional and inter-organizational social-technical alliance.
Collaborators from Indiana University - Department of Environmental Health and Safety, the Campus Consortium for Environmental Excellence, Universiteit van Amsterdam, the Katholieke Universitiet Nijmegen, and potentially others, will use videoconferencing and a web-based forum to work interactively to exchange ideas and share information. Using the high performance network capabilities of Abilene, Internet2, and SURFnet, iVW workers will collapse time and space to create a "Mission of Scale" and increase our base of knowledge and capacity to foster improvement of environmental management and sustainable practices at institutions of higher education.
Coupled with our mission-oriented activities, we intend to serve as an international high performance "Bridge" supporting and assisting research and education not only into issues of substance, but also into more general questions regarding networks, virtual workspaces, and inter-organizational linkages.
We encourage participation from practitioners and researchers interested in any of the aspects of this work.
This project is made possible through financial support from Indiana University, Office of the Vice President for Information Technology, and technical assistance from Indiana University Information Technology Services.
Creating the Virtual Concert
Principal Investigator: Don Huckleberry, Graduate Student, IU School of Music and Technology Coordinator, New Media Program, School of Informatics, IUPUI.
Secondary Investigators: John Hicks, HCPP Engineer/TRANSPAC, Advanced Information Technology Lab, IUPUI; and Ying Feng, Graduate Student, Computer Science, IUB
The Virtual Concert is a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) in which performers on separate nodes of the Internet2 (I2) rehearse and perform musical pieces. Rather than use digitized audio, the Virtual Concert will be using Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) technology that needs very little bandwidth, but timing is crucial for a live performance. The low latency of the I2 is ideal to begin this while the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative continues to send cable modem and DSL connections to homes across the country.
Current development is utilizing CAVERNsoft on the Silicon Graphics IRIX operating system. Development using CAVERNsoft G2 is about to begin with further development in the CAVE/ImmersaDesk environment using IRIX, but also addressing a possible desktop solution on Linux or a Windows-based system.
In addition to the creation of the CVE, preliminary networking testing with the MIDI data has been completed and we are ready to move to testing real time musical interaction in the environment.
Large Scale Data Visualization via High Performance Network
Investigator: John Hicks, HCPP Engineer/TRANSPAC, Advanced Information Technology Lab, IUPUI
This project addresses the need for a large-scale data visualization for scientific and biomedical applications. We are developing a system to deliver interactive volume data exploration of very large datasets to a commodity class PC over a high performance network.
Datasets on the order of multi-gigabytes or even terabytes are not uncommon in today's scientific community. The visualization of these datasets require high performance storage and computing resources. Using these high performance systems, new data decomposition and visualization algorithms are being developed to process large datasets of various representations into smaller 3-D volumes. Remote data delivery algorithms will also be developed to serve this volume data to a client over a high performance network.
The client is assumed to have a high performance network interface and hardware support for real time volume rendering (e.g. using a volumePro PC chip). These requirements essentially decouple the client rendering performance from the server processing time and network latency. A novel data access predictive method will be developed to keep the server and network systems busy while allowing the client to render in real time.
Tethering and Reattachment in Collaborative Virtual Environments
Investigators: Eric A. Wernert, UITS Advanced Visualization Lab, IUPUI; and Andrew J. Hanson, Computer Science, IUB
Our research explores a family of real-time navigation methods that support the contrasting goals of co-presence and independence in collaborative virtual environments. We focus on the basic tasks of "tethering" - keeping a collaborator close to a group or leader - and "reattachment"- returning to a collaborative virtual activity after a period of independent exploration.
We have developed taxonomies of methods and parameters for tethering and reattachment that incorporate our previous research on constrained navigation techniques. These methods have been implemented in a CAVE environment that allows us to dynamically adjust taxonomy parameters while also simulating a variety of VR display devices. This system was used to conduct formative user evaluation studies that resulted in a set of collaborative navigation design heuristics. We illustrate the application of these techniques to collaborative environments ranging form molecular visualizations to architectural models to astronomical simulations.
Multi-User Dynamic Load Balancing for Distributed Parallel Computing Environment
Investigators: A. Ecer, Y.P. Chien, H.U. Akay, E. Yilmaz, and R. Payli, Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IUPUI
The main objective of this research is to be able to run parallel codes on all available computing resources at a given time, including clusters of parallel supercomputers and networked workstations communicating through complex networks.
Previous load balancing techniques we have studied and implemented assumed a single user environment for parallel jobs. This assumption is valid only when a user has access to a dedicated set of computers. When the computers of different owners need to be accessed and many parallel jobs need to be executed concurrently, the reservation of dedicated time becomes difficult.
In a multi-user environment, multiple parallel jobs may be executed concurrently on the same set of a number of computers. A dynamic load-balancing scheme is developed for improving the efficiency of parallel computing in such an environment. Users of the parallel jobs can interactively monitor available computers and submit the jobs accordingly.
CAVE-to-CAVE Artspeak: Visual Metaphors for Collaborative Navigation
Principle Investigator: Margaret Dolinsky, Visiting Assistant Professor Henry Radford Hope, School of Fine Arts, School of Informatics, IUB
eal-time three-dimensional imagery, sound design and elements of video are manipulated and combined with human experience for interactive exhibition and
dramatic spectacle. This experience is rendered in the CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) where social landscapes based on visual metaphors are
created to guide participants' experiences and cognition. These first hand sensory involvements (i.e. pursuing an object of desire or having a face-to-face
confrontation) allow participants to develop personal meaning and significance in virtual environments. Participants cooperate between CAVE systems that are linked
in a symbiotic relationship across high-speed networks to unite in the culmination and realization of the artwork. Remote persons are portrayed through
motion-activated graphics where control of a graphical output is created by their performance, choices and actions. The action is guided by providing metaphorical
imagery in a non-linear narrative to offer modes for interaction and to exploit perception in virtual environments.
