Designed especially for neurobiologists, FluoRender is an interactive tool for multi-channel fluorescence microscopy data visualization and analysis.
Deep brain stimulation
BrainStimulator is a set of networks that are used in SCIRun to perform simulations of brain stimulation such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and magnetic transcranial stimulation (TMS).
Developing software tools for science has always been a central vision of the SCI Institute.

News

Dan Reed, Daniel Balouek-Thomert, and Manish Parashar Contribute Edge AI to Environmental Monitoring

Sage sensors monitor environment, support ‘edge AI’

Jesse Drake - University Information Technology

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Smokey Bear is mostly right—you can help prevent wildfires—but it’s not all on you. Using fire-resistant building materials, establishing vegetation-free “ignition zones,” and avoiding fire-related activities when it’s hot, dry and windy are actions that, ideally, we all can take.

The scientific community, too, has a preventive role to play around natural disasters, urbanization and climate change. Recent advances in this area, like attempts to predict fire behavior before it becomes unmanageable, are the result of an ambitious project to build a continent-wide network of intelligent sensors that monitor environmental changes.

SCI Faculty Make Headlines at Vis 2022

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Congratulations are in order for several SCI faculty who took to the awards stage at the IEEE Visualization conference this year in Oklahoma City. Valerio Pascucci was not only awarded the IEEE VGTC Visualization Technical Achievement Award, but was also inducted into the IEEE Visualization Academy. The Visualization Academy is a prestigious academy that highlights the accomplishments of the leaders in the field. These awards are limited in number, and recognize those in the field who exceed or augment the criteria of existing VGTC awards. Furthermore, Valerio, along with co-authors Atilla Gyulassy, Peer-Timo Bremer, and Bernd Hamann received the Scientific Visualization 14 year Test of Time Award for the paper: A practical approach to Morse-Smale complex computation: Scalability and generality.

Valerio Pascucci Receives IEEE VGTC Technical Achievement Award

valerio w awardsThe 2022 VGTC Visualization Technical Achievement Award goes to Valerio Pascucci for his seminal contribution in using topology for visualization and analysis of data.

Valerio Pascucci is the John R. Parks Inaugural Endowed Chair of the University of Utah, a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Computing, a faculty member of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, and the Founding Director of the Center for Extreme Data Management Analysis and Visualization (CEDMAV) at the University of Utah. He received a Ph.D. in computer science from Purdue University after moving from Italy to the US. Valerio’s Ph.D. research was titled “Multi-dimensional and multi-resolution geometric data-structures for scientific visualization” and investigated the effective use of visualization techniques to enable the interactive, intuitive exploration of big scientific data.

Jake Bergquist Presents Two Talks at CinC2022

bergquist2This year at computing in cardiology I presented two talks, both on the subject of uncertainty quantification in the context of electrocardiographic imaging. Uncertainty quantification is a technique to understand how models such as those we use to simulate or estimate the activity of the heart respond to errors or variability in the inputs to these models.

Ab Initio Visualization for Innovative Science

Congratulations to Chris Johnson (SCI) and Daniel Turner (Sandia National Laboratory) on their recently funded project "Ab Initio Visualization for Innovative Science."

This project aims to establish a theoretical framework to design scientific experiments starting with the visualization of the results (in this case, visualization of data represented as images) and working backwards to optimize experimental parameters to drastically increase information gain and decrease costs. The goal of this work is to use photo-realistic, model-based, synthetic visualization to enable a drastic leap forward for image-based experiments of complex or extreme events. The combination of optimal experimental design theory and post-optimality sensitivity analysis will be used to maximize scientific discovery in service of decision-making. Post-optimality sensitivity analysis will also elucidate model inadequacies and sources of bias by probing the discrepancies between the ab initio visualization (expected or speculative results) and the actual results of the experiment, in addition to guiding analysts to the most important features responsible for the phenomena observed in the visualization.

Three New Paper Awards

September has been good for publications with three papers winning awards.

Jadie Adams, Nawazish Khan, Alan Morris, Shireen Y. Elhabian. Spatiotemporal Cardiac Statistical Shape Modeling: A Data-Driven Approach. The 13th International Workshop on The Statistical Atlases and Computational Modeling of the Heart (STACOM) - MICCAI, 2022, won the “Best Oral Presentation Award.”

Daniel Klötzl, Tim Krake, Youjia Zhou, Ingrid Hotz, Bei Wang, Daniel Weiskopf. Local Bilinear Computation of Jacobi Sets.
Computer Graphics International (CGI), 2022, won the "Second Best Paper Award."

Surojit Saha, Ouk Choi, Ross Whitaker. Few-Shot Segmentation of Microscopy Images Using Gaussian Process. "Best Paper" at 1st International Workshop on Medical Optical Imaging and Virtual Microscopy Image Analysis.

New oneAPI Center of Excellence at University of Utah with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The oneAPI Center will build a portable, scalable, performant ZFP backend using oneAPI and SYCL to advance exascale computing


Manycore1
Manycore and multicore architectures with large memory help with a wide variety of analyses, such as Morse-Smale decomposition to understand ion diffusion characteristics of simulated battery anode materials.
Monday the 19th, Salt Lake City – The University of Utah announces the creation of a new oneAPI Center of Excellence focused on developing portable, scalable, and performant data compression techniques. The Center for Extreme Data Management Analysis and Visualization (CEDMAV) at the University of Utah, in collaboration with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) Center for Applied Scientific Computing (CASC) will accelerate ZFP compression software using oneAPI open, standards-based, programming on multiple architectures to advance exascale computing.

Six New Projects Funded

SCI is excited to announce six new projects that have been funded this past month. We look forward to sharing the research efforts from our amazing faculty and students.

Anna Busatto receives Pac-12 Scholarship

Anna Busatto UURUN19Anna Busatto has been named a recipient of the 2022 Pac-12 Postgraduate Scholarship.

The scholarship is worth $9,000 and annually recognizes up to two student-athletes from each Pac-12 school. Established in 1999, the award honors and financially assists some of the Conference's most outstanding athletes and scholars as they continue their educations and prepare for careers in their chosen industries. Across the Pac-12, scholarship recipients maintained a minimum 3.0 grade-point average and demonstrated a commitment to education, campus and community involvement, and leadership.

SCI Welcomes Five New Faculty to the Institute

The SCI Institute is pleased to announce five new faculty hires whose combined expertise will not only enhance the current research at the Institute, but also lay the path for future endeavors. The SCI Institute’s overarching vision is the transformation of science and society through translational research and innovation in computer, computational, and data science. Its mission is to bring together excellence in diverse domains applied to multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary problems of scientific and societal importance. The Institute accomplishes these goals through the collaborative development, assembly, and/or application of applied scientific and data computing, imaging, and visualization tools. These new hires will expand the core research expertise at SCI, and will continue to broaden the diversity of faculty, students, and staff.

Bei Wang Receives U SEED2SOIL Grant

facilities fleetSEED2SOIL: Telematic Data for Fleet Vehicles: A Data-Driven Solution Towards Optimal Fleet Management and Clean Vehicle Adoption

Assessing the performance of fleet services has long been an important yet challenging issue for public agencies and researchers. Performance evaluation can help the campus facilities division identify underperforming services, plan for potential investments, justify the previous investments, consolidate across multiple services, and communicate accomplishments and challenges. The goal of this study is to use telematics data to analyze the performance of the fleet operation systems and develop strategic solutions for effective fleet service management. The team will utilize a combination of Geographical Information System (GIS), data science, and visualization methods to identify the underutilized fleet and service coverage gaps, and inform strategic decision-making related to consolidated services and zero-emission vehicle deployment. This will be a joint project between PI Xiaoyue Cathy Liu at the Civil And Environmental Engineering and Co-PI Bei Wang Phillips from the SCI Institute. Through the SEED2SOIL program (https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/sustainability-research-grants/), researchers use the University of Utah Campus as a Living Lab to improve campus operations and contribute to broader sustainability knowledge.