Created: 06 July 2009

The VisTrails development team is happy to announce the release of two new versions of VisTrails. Version 1.3 contains lots of new features, improvements and a new version of the user's guide. Version 1.2.2 contains lots of bug fixes and it's basically a maintenance release of version 1.2.1. Both versions come with updated versions of VTK (5.4.2) and matplotlib. For a more detailed description see the release notes below. Both versions may be downloaded from the VisTrails wiki.

Created: 29 May 2009

The ImageVis3D team is proud to announce the release of ImageVis3D 1.0!

ImageVis3D is a desktop volume rendering application which was designed to visualize large data. Support is available for multiple rendering modes, such as 1D and 2D transfer functions, isosurface rendering, as well as specialized modes such as MIP and slice views. On modern systems, ImageVis3D's GPU-accelerated rendering delivers incredible performance, while compatibility options exist to allow ImageVis3D to perform adequately on older systems.

ImageVis3D 1.0 supports Intel Macs 10.4 and up (10.5.7 highly recommended), Windows, and Linux. Download now.

Created: 15 May 2009

Juliana Freire joins the SCI Institute from the School of Computing at the University of Utah where she is an Associate Professor. Before joining the University of Utah, she was member of the technical staff at the Database Systems Research Department at Bell Laboratories (Lucent Technologies) and an Assistant Professor at OGI/OHSU. An important theme in Professor Freire’s work is the development of data management technology to address new problems introduced by emerging applications, including the Web and scientific applications. Her recent research has focused on two main topics: Provenance management for computational tasks and Web mining. Professor Freire is an active member of the database community, having co-authored over 80 technical papers and holding 4 U.S. patents. She is a recipient of an NSF CAREER and an IBM Faculty award. She has chaired or co-chaired several workshops and conferences, and she has participated as a program committee member in over 50 events. Her research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, the University of Utah and the State of Utah.

Created: 11 May 2009

The ShapeWorks software is an open-source distribution of a new method for constructing compact statistical point-based models of ensembles of similar shapes that does not rely on any specific surface parameterization. The method requires very little preprocessing or parameter tuning, and is applicable to a wide range of shape analysis problems, including nonmanifold surfaces and objects of arbitrary topology. The proposed correspondence point optimization uses an entropy-based minimization that balances the simplicity of the model (compactness) with the accuracy of the surface representations. The ShapeWorks software includes tools for preprocessing data, computing point-based shape models, and visualizing the results. Download ShapeWorks.

Created: 01 May 2009

SCI Director Dr. Chris Johnson has been selected by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) to be honored as a SIAM Fellow for his contributions to Scientific Computing and Visualization. The SIAM Fellow is a new honor designed to recognize a member's outstanding contributions to the fields served by SIAM. Dr. Johnson is among the initial class to be selected for this honor. Initial Fellows were selected from among those SIAM members for which certain previous recognition places them clearly among those intended to be recognized by the program. For more information see: SIAM Fellows Program.

Created: 13 April 2009

SCI graduate student Huy Vo has been awarded an NVIDIA Fellowship for 2009-2010. Huy is one of just ten students in the country to receive this honor. The NVIDIA Fellowship Program provides funding to Ph.D. students who are conducting research on topics which are expected to lead to major advances in the graphics and digital media industry, and are investigating innovative ways of leveraging the power of graphics hardware. Huy Vo's graduate adviser is SCI faculty member Dr. Cláudio T. Silva.

For more information about the award, please see the NVIDIA press release "NVIDIA Fellowship Results for 2009"

Created: 09 April 2009

A SCI research team, lead by Dr. Tolga Tasdizen and Dr. Ross Whitaker, in collaboration with Dr. Robert Marc and his team at the Moran Eye Center have recently completed a 3D neurocircuitry map of every cell in the retina of a rabbit's eye. This data is a huge milestone on the way to building a complete description of the neurocircuitry that allows mammals to see. By comparing healthy samples with those undergoing disease processes, neuroscientists hope to develop a detailed understanding of how many diseases cause blindness and hopefully find ways to stop or even reverse the deterioration. The Neural Circuit Reconstruction Toolset used to construct this unprecedented map from thousands of individual electron microscope images was developed here at the SCI Institute and is currently available for download for free. The massive 20GB dataset will also eventually be made available on the web. 

Read more ...

Created: 31 March 2009

Congratulations are in order to the VisTrails team. Their Provenance Explorer for Maya has won the Utah 2009 Innovation Award.

VisTrails Inc., a SCI spin off company, was one of just nine companies to be awarded a Utah Innovation award for 2009. This award is designed to recognize Utah companies that make important innovations in their industries. A committee of more than 70 experts from private industry, government and higher education selected the award winners. Vistrails, Inc. was recognized in the Enterprise B-2-B Software category for it's Provenance Explorer for Maya.

For more information see: SL Tribune - "Utah's innovative spirit on display in Salt Lake City"

Created: 26 March 2009

SCI, in collaboration with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Denver have teamed up to tackle the challenges associated with modeling the complexities of wildfires.

www.openwfm.org

The losses associated with wildfires and the wish to understand, predict, and control wildfires have driven researchers to create ever more detailed and powerful computational models. However, the necessary sophistication and realism requires scientific computing and analysis processes of a complexity that has itself become a hindrance to further progress and education. In addition, the research is done by geographically disperse interdisciplinary groups, and making their models interoperate is a challenge. This project strives to overcome this complexity and challenges to collaboration by state-of-the-art software engineering, visualization, and collaboration tools. The results will find applications in wildfire research, education, training, and management.

Read more ...

Created: 13 March 2009

Congratulations go out to our Associate Director Greg Jones who was recently designated a v|100 - vSpring Top 100 Venture Entrepreneur. The v|100 designation is given to those individuals voted most likely to lead a successful business venture in Utah within the next few years. The v|100 is designed to help entrepreneurs and vSpring Capital establish and cultivate relationships among top CEO and CTO talent in the region. Members of this elite executive community are chosen through a peer-nominated and peer-selected process. Top members of the Utah business community were surveyed by a vSpring team to nominate the top 100 ventrue entrepreneurs in Utah. 2009 marks the sixth year of the v|100 Community. Greg was also selected as a v|100 member in 2008 and 2005.