Virtually experiencing science

Still from The Fluid Universe: Rayleigh-Taylor Instability in Fluid Flow, Greg Bryan and Mike Norman, NCSA; Trina Roy and Jon Goldman, EVL/UIC. An interactive simulation showing what happens when a heavier fluid lies on top of a lighter one.


Have you wished you could enter the lush landscape of a stunningly visual film--the Golden Valley of the recent "Shadowlands," for example--as Mia Farrow's character in the "Purple Rose of Cairo" by Woody Allen did? Or maybe when you first began using a microscope to view infinitesimal protozoa in biology lab you wanted the chance to enter their world and get an even closer look.

VROOM, a virtual reality room using CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) state-of-the-art facilities, can satisfy both those whims. This immersive technology puts researchers right in the middle of molecular dynamics, under the sea's surface, and into other natural phenomena. You will explore this innovative scientific research medium in "A virtual environments toolset driven by science." Users of this interface introduce their findings. Whether or not there is Truth in science imagery" is discussed.

Through the use of ZEUS codes developed at NCSA, Astronomer Mordecai-Mark Mac Low of UIUC and the University of Chicago, simulates the galactic event of this summer--a comet crashing into Jupiter. The developer of those codes, NCSA Research Scientist Mike Norman, recently announced the running of the world's largest cosmology simulation on NCSA's CM-5.

Other articles include the winning of the third NCSA Industrial Grand Challenge Award by two researchers from FMC Corporation and collaborative visualization in classrooms utilizing NCSA Mosaic. Several articles feature NCSA Mosaic awards and uses (online information, a conference, and licensees).

Multimedia users and developers will be especially interested in Kenneth Chang's book review.

New platforms entering NCSA's computational environment and older platforms being retired are announced in Director Larry Smarr's letter. Watch for more information about these changes in the next issue of access.

--Fran Bond, Editor


access / Summer 1994 / NCSA