An Australian team is working to establish an advanced image processing facility that will allow scientists to work with high-resolution images and 3D models previously too large to visualise. Monash University is partnering with technology providers and other research institutions on the project.
The Multi-modal Australian Sciences Imaging and Visualisation Environment will be known as MASSIVE. It will host high performance computers and graphic technologies for reconstructing data dense 2D, 3D and 3D-plus images. It is the first facility of its kind in Australia.
MASSIVE will open in August 2010. Along with Monash, major partners include NCI (hosted by ANU), the CSIRO, the Australian Synchrotron, the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing, and the state’s Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development.
The facility will provide specialist expertise in visualisation. It will enable researchers to graphically reconstruct experimental data and utilise visualisation tools to analyse and support their inquiries.
“The size of images produced by detectors in the new generation of Australian imaging instruments is growing at a phenomenal pace.
“For example, the Australian Synchrotron ‘Imaging and Therapies Beamline’ will be capable of producing 128GB-volume images, but without this new facility there would be no way to reconstruct or view them at full resolution in an acceptable period of time,” said Monash e-Research centre director Professor Paul Bonnington, noting that large volume imaging capabilities are now central to much scientific work.
“For researchers investigating Alzheimer’s disease, for example, the ability to see and analyse high-resolution visuals of the cerebral cortex of the brain and its surrounds, will clearly make a huge difference.
“The new facility at the Clayton precinct will greatly boost Australia’s ability to process, visualise and understand scientific phenomena.”
