News and Events - Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute

Summer 2004

News and Events:

SCI Announces the Publication of "The Visualization Handbook"

The SCI Institute announces the publication of "The Visualization Handbook," edited by two of SCI visualization faculty, Prof. Charles D. Hansen and Prof. Christopher R. Johnson. This book brings together top experts in the field of scientific visualization to cover state of the art techniques being applied to current scientific problems. A number of the SCI Institute's faculty, research staff, and Ph.D. students have also contributed to the book including Prof. Stephen G. Parker, Prof. Yarden Livnat, Prof. Mike Kirby, Dr. Gordon Kindlmann, Dr. Xavier Tricoche, Joe Kniss, Milan Ikits, and Dean Brederson.

Copies may be purchased on the Elsevier web site.

Dr. Chris Johnson Testifies Before Senate Sub-Committee

Chris Johnson, SCI Institute director, testified June 23^rd on Capitol Hill before the Congressional Biomedical Research Caucus. His presentation, "Computing the Future of Biomedicine," had a very large turnout, with more than 90 Senate and Congressional Staffers, NIH, NSF and other funding agencies staff, and Congressmen in attendance.

Rush Holt (Rep. New Jersey) followed up Johnson's presentation with a plea for more funding for fundamental research.

Review from the Federation of American Scientists:

Dr. Chris Johnson, distinguished speaker at the June 23rd Congressional Biomedical Research Caucus, discussed how advanced techniques in biomedical computing, imaging, and visualization are leading to spectacular discoveries in understanding the human body and improving healthcare. He cautioned, however, the breadth and quantity of emerging data has made it difficult for researchers, medical practioners, clinicians, and patients to keep pace with new discoveries and utilize them effectively. Dr. Johnson, urged Congress to support the Digital Human initiative, which he described as a national grand challenge project to promote, unify, and disseminate digital information about the human body and its complex and inter-related systems.

"The ultimate goal of the Digital Human," says Dr. Johnson "is construction of a complete, functioning, accessible simulation of the human body – from the functioning of DNA and other molecules within individual cells to the operation of entire organ systems such as the heart, lungs, brain, and musculo-skeletal systems. Having a shared framework would allow researchers, medical personnel and engineers to build on each other's work as well as allow biomedical researchers to work effectively together." Dr. Johnson is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Director of the School of Computing and Director of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute (SCI) at the University of Utah.

7 SCI Papers Accepted to IEEE Visualization 2004

7 SCI papers were accepted to this year's IEEE Visualization proceedings. Overall the acceptance rate this year was only 27.5%. For SCI, the acceptance rate was 62.5%. Congratulations are definitely in order for the authors.

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Y. Livnat, X. Tricoche. “Interactive Point Based Isosurface Extraction,” IEEE Visualization 2004, pp. 457--464, 2004. Versions Available: [PDF]

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S. Pesco, P. Lindstrom, V. Pascucci, C.T. Silva. “Implicit Occluder,” IEEE Volume Visualization 2004, pp. (accepted). 2004.

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Patrick McCormick, Jeff Inman, James Ahrens, Greg Roth, Charles Hansen. “Hardware-Accelerated System for Quantitatively Driven Visualization and Analysis” IEEE Visualization 2004, pp. 171--178, 2004.

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A. Sanderson, M. Kirby, C.R. Johnson. “Display of Vector Fields Using a Reaction Diffusion Model,” IEEE Visualization 2004, pp. 115--122, 2004.

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C. Garth, X. Tricoche, G. Scheuermann. “Tracking of Vector Field Singularities in Unstructured 3D Time-Dependent Datasets,” IEEE Visualization 2004, pp. 329--336, 2004.

As well as 2 Applications Papers:

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Xavier Tricoche, Christoph Garth, Gordon Kindlmann, Eduard Deines, Gerik Scheuermann, Markus Rütten, Charles Hansen. “Visualization of Intricate Flow Structures for Vortex Breakdown Analysis,” In Proceedings of IEEE Visualization 2004, pp. 187--194, 2004.

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Marcus Magnor, Gordon Kindlmann, Charles Hansen, Neb Duric. “Constrained Inverse Volume Rendering for Planetary Nebulae,” In Proceeding of IEEE Visualization 2004, pp. 83--90, 2004.

Nvidia Fellowship Awarded

SCI graduate student Guo-Shi Li was selected among many applications for an Nvidia fellowship. This was a highly competitive process and is a great honor for him. Guo-Shi Li's graduate advisor is SCI faculty member Chuck Hansen.

Graduates Publish Chapter in GPU Gems

SCI graduate students Milan Ikits and Joe Kniss, along with recent graduate Aaron Lefohn (currently at Pixar and UC Davis) have published a chapter (Volume Rendering Techniques) in "GPU Gems: Programming Techniques, Tips, and Tricks for Real-Time Graphics." Addison-Wesley Professional; Bk&CD-Rom edition (March 1, 2004).