3D visualization of extra large data arrays by means of scientificVR® visualizer

Visualization of data is nowadays an indispensable part of scientific research and effect analysis practically in any field of natural sciences. Graphic presentation of the results in the form of color lay-outs or functional dependence diagrams makes it considerably easier to perceive new information and contributes to a more sophisticated and efficient analysis of complicated processes and phenomena. This becomes particularly important in the course of processing big 3D arrays that one has to deal with mainly when implementing computational simulation or processing experimental or analytic data. The existing visualization systems are characterized by a number of limitations. The main limitations are a maximal visualized data array size and bad 3D data distribution presentation. That is why GDT Software Group has developed a new visualization system ScientificVR offering numerous facilities and devoid of all the limitations typical for other systems. The main ScientificVR advantages are: 3D voxel graphics, stereoscopic visualization, visualized data array size limit absence (this is of especial importance for data obtained from parallel computation systems) and on-the-fly visualization possibility. Voxel is a 3D analogue of pixel. The voxel is semitransparent, and its color is defined by the visualized function value. Voxel transparency allows the user to see the function distribution in the whole 3D area, not only in selected sections. Transparency can be adjusted to provide the most informative visualization. Stereoscopic visualization allows creating stereo images and animations. Stereo presentation is much more effective than usual and makes the data analysis process more comfortable. The visualized data array size limit absence is provided by means of a special data averaging procedure, which is to be done on parallel computation nodes by means of controlled downsampling procedure. As a result the maximal size of visualized data depends on the amount of RAM in a parallel computation system only. Required RAM size on the computation system rendering a visual presentation depends on the resolution of a resulting image only. Special programming strategy, including SDK, was developed to implement such behavior in an assumed, user-developed parallel application. The following types of data presentation are supported by ScientificVR: graphs, color presentation of 3- and 2-dimensional scalar data, isolines,.2- and 3- dimensional vectors, isosurfaces, composite displays, streamlines and tracers. The visualizer allows creating animations and saving pictures in BMP, PNG, TIFF, JPEG, EPS formats. ScientificVR is based on the modular architecture, which allows supplementing the given visualizer with new capabilities by means of plug-ins. They may be developed by the developer as well as by the user of the system. Various parts of the visualizer can be implemented as plug-ins: new data visualization schemes and algorithms, input and output file formats. Architecture of that kind has made it possible to achieve considerable flexibility in visualizing abstract data arrays and helps to support various data formats