2002		Previous Years
VisLab 10th Anniversary November 19 Sydney VisLab will celebrate ten years of Scientific Visualisation and High Performance Computing on the 3rd December 2002! TEN YEARS! This celebration will co-incide with the OzViz Workshop, to be held at Sydney VisLab on 3-4 December 2002. NSF workshop Saturday, September 22 Bernard Pailthorpe was invited to join over the Access Grid an NSF workshop: "Extensible terascale facility workshop". The discussions ranged from High Performance Computing to Grid Computing through to the next domains of research. VisLab Mirrors Side Effects' Houdini Apprentice Software September 10 VisLab has provided a fast download site for the Houdini Apprentice edition, the non-commercial version of Houdini. Free Download is available here! This service received more than a million hits in its first month of operation. Houdini Apprentice is the learning edition of the popular 3D animation software from Side Effects, Toronto Canada. NCSA visit September 13 - 16 Sydney VisLab hosted the visit of Dr Radha Nandkumar, Senior Research Scientist and Program Director of the NCSA International Affiliates Program. She gave a presentation on the latest developments at NCSA. SciVis Class July 29 - August 2 The 4th SV3 class started again. About 15 science students will work on scientific visualisation projects such as medical imaging, photonic bandgap simulations, bio-informatics. COSC Class July 29 - August 2 200 1st year students joined the new cosc classes: scientific computing with C and matlab. This is a new joint initiative between VisLab and the school of physics. PRAGMA and Grid Forum Korea July 10-12 Bernard Pailthorpe attended and gave talks on grid initiatives and research in Australia at the second PRAGMA workshop and the Grid Forum Korea in Seoul, Korea. Telstra IT Managers Monday July 8 Executives from Telstra visited VisLab and had an access grid session with another Telstra manager at Townsville. Biotechnology Showcase Monday July 8 Bernard Pailthorpe and Nicole Bordes were invited to give a talk on the visualisation challenges at the Biotechnology Showcase organised by Lars Jermiin at the University of Sydney. Visit of Dr Ian Foster Friday July 5 We are honoured to have an eminent visitor to our computing/physics community. He hails from NZ originally and these days has a joint appointment between the Math and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory and Dept. of Computer Science at The University of Chicago. He is Associate Division Director at ANL and Professor of Computer Science at Chicago. He has become quite famous, co-authoring the #1 cited published paper in Computer Science in 2001 (ref. citeseer.nj.nec.com/articles2001.html) Some of you may have experienced the "virtual" conference", SC-Global last November via our Access Grid node at Vislab-ATP: Ian was the general chair of that conference. These "Grid" ideas that were promulgated by Ian, and his collaborator Carl Kesselman who visited last year, are viewed widely as presaging the next phase of the Internet. Many nations are adopting these in their science policy and large scale funding programs: EU Data Grid [out of CERN] UK e-Science program [Ministry of Industry] US Tera-Grid initiative Similar companies, like IBM and others, have adoipted Grid business initiatives. Background More info at: www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/~foster/. In summary: he " leads computer science projects developing advanced distributed computing ("Grid") technologies, and computational science efforts applying these tools to problems in areas ranging from the analysis of data from physics experiments to remote access to earthquake engineering facilities". Ian is in Australia courtesy of IBM as the keynote speaker at QUESTnet on the Gold Coast in July 2-4 (see questnet.scu.edu.au/). Some reading: "The Grid: A New Infrastructure for 21st Century Science", Physics Today, (Feb, 2002). Foster, I and Kesselman, C. "The anatomy of the Grid", Int. J. Supercomputer Applic. 15(3), (2001). I. Foster and C. Kesselman, "The Grid: Blueprint for a new Computing Infrastructure" Morgan K, 1999. Some of Ian's previous projects: co-PI on the DOE Grand Challenge project "Supercomputer Solution of Massive Crystallographic and Microtomographic Structural Problems." The X-ray source grand challenge project, developing advanced methods for analysis of data from high-energy X-ray sources. Center for Research on Parallel Computation, including development of systems such as Program Composition Notation and HPF/MPI. ChemIO: Parallel I/O for computational chemistry applications. ACPI Avant Garde: This is one (of two) experimental projects in DOE's Accelerated Climate Prediction Initiative (ACPI), which focuses on global climate modeling. The goal is the creation of a performance-portable parallel coupled climate system model. Seminar by Dr Ian Foster Friday July 5 Friday, July 5, 2002, 10am Slade lecture Theatre [LT8], Physics Building, University of Sydney. Title: Grid Computing as a Consumer and Driver of New Infrastructure Abstract By enabling the integration of services and resources within and across enterprises, the Grid promises to deliver new ways of doing business and practicing science, powered by on-demand access to computing, seamless access to data, and dynamic outsourcing to service providers. The Grid also both places new demands on network infrastructures and expands the notion of infrastructure to new domains. In this talk, I analyze Grid infrastructure requirements and approaches that may be taken to realizing those requirements. I illustrate the discussion with reference to significant contemporary infrastructure efforts, including TeraGrid, I-WIRE, iVDGL, the Globus Toolkit, and the Open Grid Services Architecture. Biography Ian Foster is the Associate Division Director, Senior Scientist Head at Distributed Systems Lab Mathematics & Computer Science, Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Illinois. Ian is also Professor of Computer Science at The University of Chicago. Ian leads a computer science projects developing advanced distributed computing technologies and parallel tools, and computational science efforts applying advanced computing techniques to scientific problems in areas such as climate modeling and the analysis of data from physics experiments. Directions: /about/local_info/map/usyd_map.html. The Slade lecture Theatre is located on the ground floor half-way through the physics building. Morning tea will be served at 11am, after the talk, courtesy of IBM. More info on Ian here This seminar is sponsored by IBM and Sydney VisLab. University of Texas - Austin Wednesday July 3 An access grid session took place between researchers from the University of Texas - Austin and Prof. Bernard Pailthorpe, University of Sydney to establish future research collaborations. Work experience: Nicky Ringland July 1 - 5 Nicky spent a week in VisLab as a work experience student. She learnt html and worked on her web page. In addition she is working on a redesign of our map in the VisLab web site. USyd Information Technology Services Friday June 21 Four ITS managers of the University of Sydney visited the VisLab - ATP facility. Informal celebration of the opening of the JCU access grid Friday May 24 Dr Ian Atkinson from James Cook University, along with students and researchers celebrated the opening of their access grid and held a demonstration session with Sydney University. Archaeology seminar Friday May 17 The friday archaeology seminar was held at Sydney VisLab. Prof. Roland Fletcher presented his research on Angkor Wat. APAC research meeting Monday May 13 An APAC research meeting to discuss future directions in computing in Australia was held at Sydney VisLab. Participants included Prof. B. Pailthorpe (Sydney VisLab), Prof. K. Burrage, (QPSF - University of Queensland), Prof. R. Stanton (Pro Vice-Chancellor Australian National University), Prof. W. Appelbe (VPAC - RMIT) and K. Smith (IVEC - University of Western Australia). University of Texas - Austin Monday May 13 An access grid session took place between Prof. Chandrajit Bajaj from the University of Texas - Austin and Prof. Bernard Pailthorpe, University of Sydney to talk about visualisation research. Sydney University Architecture class with JCU Friday May 10 Architecture students from Sydney University interacted with researchers at James Cook University using the Access Grid. Some pictures here. Work experience: Ishnima Naidu May 6 - 10 Isha spent a week in VisLab as a work experience student. She is learning html and working on her web page and the design of the ozvis 02 web site. Some pictures here. University of Melbourne - IT department Friday May 3 Prof. Bernard Pailthorpe was invited to give a talk in Visualisation and grid computing at the University of Melbourne. Queensland Department of Innovation and Information Economy seminar Tuesday April 30 Prof. Pailthorpe gave an invited talk at the "Seeking a Competitive Edge" seminar organised by the Queensland Department of Innovation and Information Economy, James Cook University and the Queensland Parallel Supercomputing Foundation. The seminar was aimed at local industry and government. Click here for more details (pdf file). University of Queensland Monday April 29 Bernard Pailthorpe and Nicole Bordes visited the University of Queensland to talk of various opportunities in grid computing and bio-informatics. Inauguration of the 2nd Access Grid at Townsville Tuesday April 30 The Honourable Paul Lucas MP, Queensland Minister for Innovation and Information Economy inaugurated the second Australian Access Grid at James Cook University (JCU) - Townsville. Professor Alan Baxter, Comparative Genetics Centre (University of Sydney), Professor Leonard Lindoy, Inorganic Chemistry (University of Sydney) and George McLaughlin, CEO AARNet using the Access Grid at VisLab (Sydney) participated in a session with Professor Norman Palmer, PVC Research and International (JCU), Dr Ian Atkinson, Deputy Director QPSF (JCU), Professor Bernard Pailthorpe, Director of Vislab (University of Sydney), Ms Jayne Seebeck, Department of Innovation and Information Economy (DIIE) and the Honourable Paul Lucas. Chris Willing (VisLab) installed the Access Grid at JCU. There are plans for new nodes at the University of Queensland and Cairns. Queensland DIIE media release Some pictures of the inauguration Rural Fire Services Friday April 12 Bernard Pailthorpe and Nicole Bordes visited the Rural Fire Services headquarters at Rosehill to discuss possible future collaborations between VisLab and the RFS in the area of visualisation and communications. Prof. Bernard Pailthorpe, Director of the Science Foundation for Physics Thursday April 11 Prof. Bernard Pailthorpe has been appointed Director of the Science Foundation. The Science Foundation for Physics (formerly Nuclear Research Foundation) was the first foundation established within the University of Sydney in 1954. The Foundation aims to support fundamental and applied research in the School of Physics as well as promote the role of Physics in the Australian society. Former directors include Prof. R. Collins, Prof. L. Cram, Prof. M. Brennan and Prof. H. Messel. Aerosense conference April 1 - 5 Bernard Pailthorpe attended the SPIE Aerosense 2002 conference in Orlando, USA. He gave an invited presentation on the high resolution display installed in VisLab. Berry Vircoe - MIT Thursday April 4 Barry Vercoe, Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT visited VisLab at the ATP. Barry Vercoe is one of the founding Member of the MIT Media Lab New staff Monday March 25 Michelle Doherty who completed Honors in Astrophysics in 2001, has joined VisLab. She will be working on image processing of the liver CT scans. Lecture for Faculty of Architecture DESC9097 course Saturday March 23 Chris Willing gave a lecture to students as part of the Faculty of Architecture course DESC9097, "Digital Communication in Design" which teaches concepts in computer mediated communication and computer-supported collaborative design. This is a unit in the Master of Design Science (Design Computing) tought by Mary Lou Maher ( http://www.arch.usyd.edu.au/~mary/home.html). The lecture topic was "The Access Grid at Uni of Sydney Vislab". International representatives of ACM Siggraph in VisLab Wednesday March 20 Ben Simons and the Sydney ACM Siggraph Chapter organised the visit of Alan Chalmers, Reader in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bristol, Judith R. Brown, visualization specialist, author, and President of ACM SIGGRAPH, Thierry Frey, ACM SIGGRAPH Director for Chapters and David Arnold, ACM Chair of Membership Activities Board and and Professor at the School of Information Systems, University of East Anglia. Brown, Chalmers and Arnold gave a talk entitled "Realism in Real Time: The Future of Computer Graphics" and visited VisLab at the ATP. Talented Student in VisLab Monday March 18 2nd year computer science Scott McMillan will work in VisLab as part of the talented student program. Scott will work on openGL software for the tield displays. Inaugural PRAGMA Workshop at UCSD March 11 - 12 Bernard Pailthorpe attended the inaugural workshop of the Pacific Rim Applications and Grid Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA), an international initiative to establish sustained collaborations and advance the use of the computational grid among a community of investigators at the leading research institutions around the Pacific Rim. VisLab from the University of Sydney is one of the member research institutions through the APAC programme. Classes using the Access Grid held between Sydney and Boston Friday March 8 A second architecture class was held using the access grid between students at Sydney University and Boston University. NPACI All Hands meeting March 7 - 9 Bernard Pailthorpe attended the NPACI All Hands meeting at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Colour Society of New South Wales Tuesday March 5 Nicole Bordes and Bernard Pailthorpe gave a talk to Colour Society of New South Wales on scientific visualisation. The title of the presentation was: "Frontiers of Scientific Visualisation and Advances in Computer Displays" Access Grid workshop March 4 - 5 Chris Willling attended the Access Grid workshop held at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. New staff March 4 Shelley Wickam and Nathan Ford started work in VisLab. Shelley will be working on the displays in physics and at the ATP. Nathan will be working on system administration. Napier is back: bigger and better than before! Thursday 28 February The Power Challenge located at ANU has been decommissioned: Sydney and Townsville will share the "bits and pieces". As a result Napier (the Sydney Power Challenge) is now a 28 processor machine, with 4 Gbytes of RAM and 124 Gbytes of disk space. Peak performance: 11.2 GigaFlops. If you require access to Napier, contact the VisLab office at (02) 9351 3005 or office@vislab.usyd.edu.au for more information. SHB - Royal Society of New South Wales Thursday 21 February Bernard Pailthorpe and Nicole Bordes gave a talk to the Southern Highland Branch of the Royal Society of New South Wales. Click here for more information on the Royal Society of New South Wales. Classes on Access Grid between Sydney and Boston Friday 8 February An architecture class was held using the access grid between students at Sydney University and Boston University. Rural Fire Service Wednesday 6 February R. Smith, assistant commissioner of the Rural Fire Service and G. Douglas came to visit VisLab and discuss possible opportunities between RFS and VisLab. NSW Fire Brigade Tuesday 5 February Bernard Pailthorpe and Nicole Bordes along with a team of researchers from Sydney University were invited to join officials of the NSW fire brigade to talk about research opportunities. VRSolutions Friday 1 February M. Bosworth and K. Smith from VRSolutions visited VisLab to discussed about the high resolution display. Canon Australia Wednesday 23 January Dr Phil Robertson of Canon Australia and Dr Hidey Tamura from the Mixed Reality Systems Laboratory at Canon Japan visited VisLab-ATP. Dr Tamura presented his work on mixed reality. APAN Thailand Meetings 22 - 26 January Chris Willing attended the APAN Thailand Meetings held at Phuket. Visit of Dr Greg Hooper Monday 21 January Dr Greg Hooper, from Information Environments at the University of Queensland, visited VisLab to talk about collaborations on virtual environments. VisLab core partner of ICT Horizons Friday 11 January VisLab is a core partner of ICT Horizons led by the University of Sydney, Australian Photonics CRC, the state government of NSW, the university of Adelaide, the Redfern group of companies. Horizon is one of the leading bids for Australia's information and communications technology centre. The winner will be announced in April.		2003 - 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994

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