Computer Graphics Laboratory
The
Computer Graphics Laboratory in Fitzpatrick Hall
houses specialized hardware and software for graphical analysis. The hardware
includes three Sun Sparcstation workstations, two IBM personal computers,
and two Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations. Some of the many capabilities
of the laboratory are as follows:
1) Data fields arising from computational or experimental results can be brought in via the campus ethernet network. Similarly, processed graphical files can be exported out via the same network. The lab has the capability to convert graphic files from and to a variety of different formats.
2) Three high-level visualization software tools are available for analysis of data: Data Visualizer (from Wavefront Technologies), FAST (from NASA Ames), and Explorer (from Silicon Graphics). The three programs represent software environments for visualizing data. Within each program, an extensive collection of tools allows one to examine the results of numerical and experimental simulations. The user can load data files, perform calculations on the data, visualize the results of these calculations, construct scenes of 3D graphical objects, and plot, animate, and record the scenes in an automated fashion.
3) In addition, PV-WAVE, a lower level general purpose visualization program, and the extensive graphics library from Precision Visual is also available.
4) Special software and hardware for video titling, editing, animation, and special effects is available.
5) The 300 dpi color scanner provides the capability of digitizing print material, and frame grabbers also allow the digitizing of color video images.
6) In addition to the standard laser printer, there is a color laser printer from which prints and viewgraphs may be generated. There is also the capability for outputting digitized images on video tape to create high quality video presentations. More than one video input signal may be overlaid to produce a single video image.
Direct comments, questions, and corrections to amedept@nd.edu