The SSEC Visualization Project

The Visualization Project at the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) of the University of Wisconsin-Madison focuses on making advanced visualization techniques useful to scientists in their daily work. We accomplish this goal by making two scientific visualization systems, named Vis5D and VisAD, freely available over the Internet, and by using these systems as testbeds for exploring and evaluating new techniques.

Check out this short fiction about artificial intelligence, [Message Contains No Recognizable Symbols].

Check out my recipe for chicken and broccoli chili.

Here's the candid story of Bill's career at SSEC, which includes the story of the SSEC Visualization Project.

Sleep.

VisFiles Columns in the SIGGRAPH Newsletter

Here's a Visualization Viewpoints column about the Top Five Problems that Motovated My Work.

And here's my first letter and my second letter (fifth of eight letters) to the NY Times about manned space travel.

VisAD

VisAD is a Java component library for interactive and collaborative visualization and analysis of numerical data. It combines a flexible data model and distributed objects (via Java RMI) to support sharing of data, visualizations and user interfaces between different data sources, different computers and different scientific disciplines.

Click here to see a screen shot of a collaborative application written using VisAD.

Vis5D

The Vis5D system is very widely used by scientists to visualize the output of their numerical simulations of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. To see images generated by Vis5D, click on:

sulfer dioxide with iso-lines of nitric acid (the icons on the left of the image give scientists interactive control over the three-dimensional images as they are animated)
wind vorticity during the winter storm of March 1993
Florida thunderstorms generated by colliding sea breezes.

Vis5D is being used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to visualize air quality models. Click here to read about our cooperation with the EPA.

We used Vis5D for experiments with the BLANCA high-speed Network as part of the Gigabit Testbed Project.

Cave5D

Cave5D is a virtual reality version of Vis5D for the CAVE and ImmersaDesk. It was written by the SSEC Visualization Project for The SIGGRAPH 94 Daily Weather Forecast in the VROOM (virtual reality room) at Siggraph '94, and Exploring Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Models Using Vis5D and VisAD at Supercomputing '95 in the GII Testbed. This demonstration connected a CAVE in San Diego to an SP-2 data server at Argonne National Labs via the high-speed I-WAY network. Click here to see a Cave5D view of sea surface temperatures and upper air winds from the global coupled ocean-atmosphere model.

Cave5D is currently being devloped and distributed by Sheri Mickelson and John Taylor of Argonne National Laboratory. It is freely available here. Cave5D can be applied to any Vis5D data set (i.e., any .v5d file).

Serving and Viewing Vis5D Files Via the Web

Scientists are using the World Wide Web to exchange the output of their models as Vis5D files. Links to Vis5D files are embedded in Web pages, just as links to GIF files are embedded in Web pages, and Web browsers invoke Vis5D to view them, just as browsers invoke xv to view GIF files.

Sites regularly serving model output as Vis5D files via the Web include:

The University of Wisconsin serving output from the Non-hydrostatic Modeling System.
The National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service serving output from the CIMSS Regional Assimilation System.

In order to view these model runs, you must install Vis5D and set up your Web browser (e.g., Netscape or Mosaic) to invoke Vis5D as an external viewer. Click here to find out how to do it, or to find out how to serve your own model runs via the Web.

Mesa

You may also be interested in Mesa, which was originally developed by Brian Paul while with the SSEC Visualization Project. Mesa is a 3-D graphics library with an API which is very similar to that of OpenGL.* To the extent that Mesa utilizes the OpenGL command syntax or state machine, it is being used with authorization from Silicon Graphics, Inc. However, the author makes no claim that Mesa is in any way a compatible replacement for OpenGL or associated with Silicon Graphics, Inc. Those who want a licensed implementaion of OpenGL should contact a licensed vendor. This software is distributed under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License, see the LICENSE file for details.

* OpenGL(R) is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc.

Publications

Here are a few publications of the SSEC Visualization Project:

Java distributed components for numerical visualization in VisAD
William Hibbard, Curtis Rueden, Steve Emmerson, Tom Rink, David Glowacki, Tom Whittaker, Don Murray, David Fulker, John Anderson, Communications of the ACM 48, No. 3, 2005, 98-104.
VisAD: Connecting people to computations and people to people
W. Hibbard, Computer Graphics 32, No. 3, 1998, 10-12.
Exploring coupled atmosphere-ocean models using Vis5D
W. Hibbard, J. Anderson, I. Foster, B. Paul, R. Jacob, C. Schafer, M. Tyree, Int. J. of Supercomputer Applications 10, No. 2, 1996, 211-222.
Virtual Chesapeake Bay: interacting with a coupled physical/biological model
G. H. Wheless, C. M. Lascara, A. Valle-Levinson, D. P. Brutzman, W. Sherman, W. L. Hibbard, and B. E. Paul, Computer Graphics and Applications 16, No. 4, 1996, 52-57.
Interactive Visualization of Earth and Space Science Computations
W. L. Hibbard, B. E. Paul, D. A. Santek, C. R. Dyer, A. L. Battaiola, and M-F. Voidrot-Martinez, Computer 27, No. 7, July 1994, 65-72.
A Lattice Model for Data Display
W. L. Hibbard, C. R. Dyer, and B. E. Paul, Proc. IEEE Visualization '94, 1994, 310-317.
Display of Scientific Data Structures for Algorithm Visualization
W. Hibbard, C. R. Dyer, and B. Paul, Proc. IEEE Visualization '92, 1992, 139-146.
Interactive Atmospheric Data Access Via High Speed Networks
W. Hibbard, D. Santek, and G. Tripoli, Computer Networks and ISDN Systems 22, 1991, 103-109.
The VIS-5D System for Easy Interactive Visualization
W. Hibbard, and D. Santek, Proc. IEEE Visualization '90, 1990, 129-134.
Visualizing Large Data Sets in the Earth Sciences
W. Hibbard, and D. Santek, Computer 22, No. 8, August 1989, 53-57.
Interactivity is the Key
W. Hibbard, and D. Santek, Proc. Chapel Hill Workshop on Volume Visualization, 1989, 39-43.
Application of the 4-D McIDAS to a Model Diagnostic Study of the Presidents' Day Cyclone
W. Hibbard, L. Uccellini, D. Santek, and K. Brill, Bull. Amer. Met. Soc. 70, 1989, 1394-1403.
4-D Display of Meteorological Data
W. Hibbard, and D. Santek, Proc. 1986 Workshop on Interactive 3D Graphics, 1986, 23-36.
Computer Generated Imagery for 4-D Meteorological Data
W. Hibbard, Bull. Amer. Met. Soc. 67, 1986, 1362-1369.
3-D Weather Displays Using McIDAS
W. Hibbard, R. Krauss, and J. Young, Preprints, Conf. Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, 1985, 153-156.
An Efficient Method of Interpolating Observations to Uniformly Spaced Grids
W. Hibbard, and D. Wiley, Preprints, Conf. Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, 1985, 144-147.

Video Publications

And here are a few video publications of the SSEC Visualization Project:

Verifying a Weather Model Using Satellite Observations
W. Hibbard, and B. Paul, Siggraph Video Review 114, 1995.
Computational Steering with VisAD
W. Hibbard, and B. Paul, Siggraph Video Review 108, 1995.
Real-time Volume Rendering of Downbursts
W. Hibbard, and B. Paul, Siggraph Video Review 105, 1994.
Hurricane Gilbert
W. Hibbard, and B. Paul, Siggraph Video Review 105, 1994.
Energy Generation by Controlled Thunderstorm
W. Hibbard, and B. Paul, Siggraph Video Review 82, 1992.
Using VisAD to visualize a cloud discrimination algorithm
W. Hibbard, and B. Paul, Video Proceedings of IEEE Visualization '92, 1992.
El Nino Satellite Observations and Downburst Simulation
W. Hibbard, and D. Santek, Siggraph Video Review 74, 1991.
Cold Fronts Moving Across the North Atlantic
W. Hibbard, and D. Santek, Siggraph Video Review 61, 1990.
Volume Visualization of Clouds
W. Hibbard, Siggraph Video Review 44, 1989.
Interactive Earth Science Visualization
W. Hibbard, and D. Santek, Siggraph Video Review 43, 1989.
Visualization of Four-dimensional Meteorological Data
W. Hibbard, D. Santek, and G. Dengel, Siggraph Video Review 37, 1988.
Presidents' Day Storm
W. Hibbard, and D. Santek, Siggraph Video Review 35, 1988.

You can obtain copies of most of these videos from the Siggraph Video Review.

More Information

For more information about the SSEC Visualization Project please contact Bill Hibbard.

Here's a comprehensive list of scientific visualization web sites.

I highly recommend Google Scholar for general scientific information, Slashdot for technical information, Flight Stats in case you should be so unfortunate as to need flight information, and Wikipedia as an on-line encyclopedia. See Scholarpedia for a free peer reviewed encyclopedia of computational neuroscience, dynamical systems and computational intelligence. See Open Culture for a wealth of free cultural and educational media. See Investopedia and RealClearMarkets for useful financial information. See RealClearScience for useful science information.

To find general information on the Web I recommend Google, DuckDuckGo, and the WayBack Machine web archive. For current news I like Reason, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Financial Times, The Economist, The London Times, The Independent (London), The Guardian (London), The Telegraph (London), The Australian, The International Herald Tribune (Paris), Mainichi Daily News (Tokyo), Sumo results (but see this), The Japan Times (Tokyo), The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo), NHK World (Tokyo), The China Daily (Beijing), The Moscow Times, The Moscow News, The Wisconsin State Journal and this list of on-line newspapers at the Internet Public Library. I like Howard Johnson's art for his imagination, I like Jim Norton's Heavy Table for fun and good Midwestern food, I like Mike Critelli's blog for his good judgement, and I like Bruce Perens' web site for his insight into technology. The Drudge Report is good for breaking stories. Truthout and Robert Reich's thoughts. Cricket news.

Don't miss the NY Times Best of the Millennium. If you need to work with Word files Google Docs is free and easy. You can have lots of fun with Google Maps. Make sure to click on "Satellite" once you zoom into an interesting location. The Edge. Check out the Halloween Documents. And the Darwin Awards. Of course the Las Vegas Casino Death Watch. Google Beta. 2001 A Space Odyssey, explained. Chernobyl Rides, a hoax but nevertheless interesting. Interested in saving the world? Check out The Copenhagen Consensus. Of course I would add raising public consciousness about the need to regulate artificial intelligence.