Skyline Arch - Visualization Cluster

  • This passive stereo "power wall" was build in 2004 to provide users with means to visualize their result on a high resolution, three-dimensional display.

Specs.

  • 3 x 3 display
  • 4800 x 3600 total resolution
  • Passive stereo
    • Polarized filters
    • Polarized glasses

Hardware

  • 10 - dual AMD Opteron 246 nodes
    • Nvidia Quadro FX 3000 Graphics cards
  • 18 - Sanyo PLC-XT11 LCD projectors

Software

  • Chromium - an open source application originally developed out of Stanford, Chromium intercepts system OpenGL calls and send them over a network to backend nodes, where they are rendered and displayed.
  • Xdmx - enables the creation of a large unified X display across a network.

Applications

  • Two applications are frequently used with the viz wall:
    • VMD - Visual Molecular Dynamics
      • Developed out the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Open Source)
    • Amira
      • A commercial product from Mercury Visualization Sciences
  • Almost any application that uses OpenGL could be implemented and used on the wall

Usage

  • Skyline Arch is open to use by all users.
  • If you have interest in using Skyline Arch, please contact Sam Liston (sam.liston@utah.edu)

How To