IDIA Visualization Laboratory
Visualization of information presents one of the biggest challenges in the era of big-data astronomy. To address this challenge, the IDIA Visualization Lab was officially launched in February 2018. The fruit of continuous development since 2016, the lab offers novel facilities to explore huge astronomy data sets visually, both locally and in the cloud.
The visualization lab also includes the management of the research conducted using the Iziko Planetarium and Digital Dome, led by Prof. Tom Jarrett with Dr. Sally MacFarlane as Research Planetarium Consortium Liaison. Another researcher in the visualization lab, Dr. Lucia Marchetti, is also project manager of the joint Italy/IDIA Virtual Reality Consortium.
Facilities:
COBRA
WALIE
Virtual Reality
Digital Dome
COBRA
The Cobra is a 4K curved panorama curved visual display system. The 180 by 135 cm curved screen is illuminated by a 4K projector and a spherical mirror. The Cobra is designed to explore our imaging and catalogue data using existing software, as well as tools developed specifically for IDIA.
WALIE
WALIE stands for Wide Area Large Interactive Explorer
WALIE is a multi-screen video wall, consisting of a 2×2 array of high end 55″ screens giving the wall a total 8K UHD resolution. This is useful for example to compare large data sets and images. Users can use up to four screens on a dedicated high-end machine or bring their own device to plug in to WALIE. Researchers have used WALIE to visualize high resolution images from the MeerLICHT and MeerKAT telescopes. The large screen area allows them to display images in high resolution, as well as any analytical tools required for visual analytics.
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality, but for astronomy?
Virtual Reality has been in existence for some time, but its use in the context of data exploration in relative infancy. IDIA is pioneering software development in VR for the exploration of large multi-dimensional data sets, and most importantly, interaction with the data through analytics.
Immersive platforms are coming into their own as unique environments for visualizing large, natively three-dimensional data sets. VR is entirely immersive, but a wholly individual experience. The VR system is also integrated to the Cobra so that both systems can use the same software to display in real-time the output from the VR system.
Digital Dome
Digital full dome data visualization.
The Iziko Planetarium and Digital Dome opened in 2016. Besides offering public educational shows, the facility is used for research. The digital dome offers a hybrid environment through its shared immersive experience, particularly useful for collaboration and teaching on large data sets.
The Cobra is also used to develop full dome data sets, which are used with the Iziko Planetarium and Digital Dome.
