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September 2006

VizNET and the potential N.V.S.

Dr. Ian Grimstead

Cardiff School of Computer Science

email: I.J.Grimstead@cs.cardiff.ac.uk

“Anyone Interested in a National Visualization

Service?“

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September 2006

Contents Introduction - visualization VizNET: Who/What? National Visualization Service – Why? Summary of Loughborough Meeting for NVS Wrap-up

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September 2006

Visualization acknowledged as requiring additional support Growing data mountain – the need to analyse data rapidly

Visualization is a means to do this Need to increase people’s awareness of this potential solution

Motivation: Visualization previously required specialist, expensive hardware Recent availability of cost-effective hardware Research groups now newly enabled to use visualization

Introduction

Anyone seen my results?

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September 2006

Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has recently funded “VizNET” in the U.K. to: Offer advice / training for visualization Promote best practice

Make best use of facilities (hardware & software) Most appropriate tools for the job

Spread awareness of visualization And hence computational steering

VizNET: What?

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September 2006

VizNET is: PI – Prof. Roy Kalawsky (Loughborough) http://wiki.viznet.ac.uk Created by a number of UK visualization centres

Cardiff, CCLRC, Leeds, Loughborough, Manchester + King’s College London (Arts & Humanities)

So, on the subject of visualization…

VizNET: Who?

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September 2006

National Visualization Service: Why? National Grid Service currently provides compute service Growing evidence:

Overwhelmed with high-end compute output Advanced scientific users require high-end visualization Need specialist visualization hardware/software

Proposition: A National Visualization Service What does this mean? It means whatever the community defines it as

Not just viz …could be a render farm …could be computational steering …up to you!

Hence attendance at events to gather community input

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September 2006

Summary of Loughborough Meeting Visualization requirements workshop 18th May 2006

Systems Engineering Innovation Centre, Loughborough University

Aims of meeting: Inform the JISC Committee for Supporting Research (JCSR) Determine strength of support for a national visualization resource Considered as a possible extension to the existing National Grid

Service

Attendees: Reasonable spectrum of disciplines Spread across the UK

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September 2006

Factors/Issues Highlighted Prof. Peter Coveney (UCL) gave a keynote speech

Computational materials modelling; RealityGrid

Important issues raised: Current e-Science infrastructure is incomplete

Does not provide all end-to-end capability people expect Trend will be for larger data sets to prevent finite size effects

Will produce more demanding visualization challenges Likely key requirement:

Real-time interaction and computational steering Between visualizations and simulations

Distributed infrastructure Cited HPC usage report from EPSRC…

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September 2006

International Review of Research Using HPC in the UK

December 2005 – EPSRC (ISBN 1-904425-54-2)

Recommendation: 2. Strengthen the computational infrastructure by: …deploying leading-edge capability systems… Supporting and developing a state-of-the-art applications software

infrastructure …data management and analysis, visualization… (p16)

Recommendation: 4.4.Visualization Resources …visualization is indispensable in computational science… …the Panel observed that visualization in the UK lags behind international

standards… ..... The Panel are concerned that without an improvement in visualization

sophistication… …hidden scientific treasures will increasingly lurk undiscovered in the massive data to be produced by the enhancement of HPC capability and capacity…

…Therefore, the Panel recommends… …to establish a balance among leading-edge computing facilities, visualization technologies, and well educated computational scientists. (p15)

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September 2006

User Perspective / Requirements Summary from attendees:

NGS policies would need to change to incorporate a visualization component.

Need to support wide range of users Users need access to familiar tools

Improved tools will be required Collaborative tools

May be a case for a single “monster” resource and multiple “mini-monsters”

Covers interactive and batch approaches (render farm) Should include all modalities (visual / auditory / haptic) Support for mobile – visualization on the move Data transfer / storage issues

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September 2006

Service Provision Summary from attendees:

Interactive service requires different booking method cpw. batch May need co-allocation with compute resource for computation steering

Issue of suppliers – may become more reliant on PC class hardware User support needs will vary:

Expert – specialist assistance Novice – general assistance

Service must be reliable One stop sign-in for ease of access Varying security requirements

Medical data cpw. generic scientific data Diverse applications (user’s own code / specific application) Licensing issues

OK, I’m up here… …now

what?

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September 2006

Recommendations #1/3

National Visualization Service Consensus support for a National Visualization Service

Run alongside NGS Should be a distributed, rather than centralized, service Different sites offer different facilities and access to visualization

resources Level of provision: orders of magnitude greater than PC desktop

hardware

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September 2006

Recommendations #2/3

User Requirements We need to consider requirements from a broad spectrum of users

Users requirements in social sciences, arts and humanities are less well understood

Compare with science and engineering community

Needs support for interactive computational steering Collaborative visualization working could be of major benefit to the

community Especially at an international level

I’m a VTK/C++

man, m’self

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September 2006

Recommendations #3/3

Accessibility Barriers may exist until potential users are up to speed VizNET has a role here in providing training and support. Reservation of visualization facilities is important

Example: for interactive computational steering, or high-profile demonstrations

Software licensing is an issue that may need vendor participation to resolve.

Funding JISC should be encouraged to consider a National Visualization

Service Within JISC’s budgetary planning for funding as soon as possible

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September 2006

It’s… “Win* Your Own NVS” Time! Well… Partake and you will help define the NVS as you want it

So you'll get your own NVS in a way

OK! Anyone using visualization? Computation steering?

You may not consider it viz/comp steer, but it might be! Broad spectrum

Interactive and non-traditional displays Haptics

Off-line rendering Batch job checkpointing Graphing of data

* = do not win

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September 2006

Anyone using Viz. / Comp. Steering? To produce an NVS, we’d love to know… What are you doing – executive summary, please!

What does viz / comp steer enable you to do? That you couldn't otherwise Or, “Why bother” for the non-visualization users

What are you prevented from doing? Why? “It’s rock hard!” perchance? Or rather, what would you like to be doing?

Any particular software/hardware do you use? If there was an NVS, what would you like? For instance…

High-end graphics processors to render a larger dataset in real time? Software that you haven't got locally? A link into an NGS process that's running for comp steer?

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September 2006

It’s a Wrap!

Thank-you for your input! And (potentially) surviving the humour

Remember! We need to be user driven by YOU

for this to work!!!

Note: Additional workshops to be held UK e-Science AHM 2006 – next Wednesday Also at NeSC, as Loughborough workshop

Date to be confirmed; in October 2006 at NeSC