Month: October 2010

How to Construct a Global Visualization Lab

My apologies for how long it took to get this up. I promised our colleagues at the Xiamen University that I’d put up the complete specs for the Global Visualization room – a component of Dr. Matt Oliver’s ORB Lab and the pesky day job kept getting in the way.

Panorama Fish Eye LensI originally tried a video walk-through of the GVis Lab but it ended up being a lot of panning and zooming around, which I didn’t really care for. Instead I got to try out a fancy digital camera with a 180 degree fish-eye lens the other morning, which I used to shoot three shots of the room 120 degrees apart from each other. I used a software package called 3DVista Show to stitch the fish-eye pictures into a panorama image, which I uploaded to a free online hosted tour on their site. Once I got through uploading the image, the service provided an iFrame string that I included in the post to embed the panorama project. Be sure to click the full-screen icon (top right-hand arrow next to the question mark) to see the panorama a little better.

As you pan around the room, you’ll see the major components of the lab, which are:

The Dell Precision T7500 workstation was selected because it was one of the few systems that was capable of handling (2) PCIe x16 graphics cards simultaneously. We started with one graphics card with the expectation that it could handle the video workload, but wanted the option to add another graphics card in SLI mode to boost graphics performance. So far we haven’t needed a second video card as everything runs quite smooth under Windows 7 x64 as the base operating system and running Google Earth Professional.

The nVidia graphics card has two DVI outputs. One output is fed into the VWBox 133A video splitter, which spreads the 4300×2100 signal across the (9) monitors in the 3×3 monitor array. The VWBox also allows us to “subtract out” the bezel, which eliminates a few lines of video where the bezels are – making for no stepping in diagonal lines or graphics. The 460UX-2 Samsung monitors are all 1920×1080 (1080p) monitors with an 11mm bezel on all four sides. This is the smallest bezel monitor that was available when we built the wall. For Google Earth and other high-resolution work, the display is fantastic, however a second monitor was added to display lower-resolution content at a larger size and for Powerpoint presentations and the like. As small as the bezels are, they may cause some readability problems for text that happens to line up with them such as bulleted text on a Powerpoint slide and text in general. To eliminate this possibility a second large screen monitor was added so that this type of content can be dragged over to it. The second DVI output drives the 60” LCD display at the right-hand side of the room at 1920×1080 resolution. Windows treats the two monitors as one large virtual display, so content can be easily dragged from the large multi-screen display to the smaller 60” LCD and back.

We wanted the ability to present and control the system from anywhere in the room, so the RF Go Mouse and keyboard were selected. The RF dongle allows us to stay connected from up to 100’ away from the computer, which covers the entire lab and beyond. We tried other wireless keyboards and mice but they quickly lost their connection when they were 10-15 feet away. The 3DConnexion 3D Space Navigator makes it easy to manipulate the Google Earth application, but it is a USB device (no wireless equivalent available yet). To allow us to stretch the Space Navigator anywhere in the room, a USB extender was used to allow us to connect a Cat5 cable as an extension cord for the controller. The same extender was used to allow for placement of the Orbit cam on the opposite side of the room (next to the 60” LCD display).

The Orbit Cam is intriguing as it has a stepper motor in the base which allows the operator to turn it left and right. The auto-focus zoomable lens is able to be moved up and down as well. This allows the operator to pan and zoom anywhere in the room when we’re connected to another researcher or student via Skype or other teleconferencing software.

There is a photo below of me standing next to the multi-display wall with the CEOE website maximized on it. This shows the uber-high resolution of the display and some of the issues that just having it alone (no 2nd display) could cause. The first such monitor that we put in was an 82” Mitsubishi rear-projected LCD display. We ended up returning that display, even though it was larger, because it just wasn’t bright enough. It looked extremely dark when sitting next to the much brighter Samsung LCD display wall.

Samsung-460UX-2-Monitors

Samsung-460UX-2-Monitors

Video Wall Scale

Video Wall Scale

Monitor Wall Mounts

Monitor Wall Mounts

Sharp Aquos 60 inch LCD

Sharp Aquos 60 inch LCD

Logitech Orbit cam

Logitech Orbit cam

USB to Cat5

USB to Cat5

3D Space Navigator

3D Space Navigator

RF Keyboard and Mouse

RF Keyboard and Mouse

Pyle Amp

Pyle Amp

VWBox 133A

VWBox 133A

Dell Precision T7500

Dell Precision T7500

APC UPS

APC UPS

I continue to watch the professional display manufacturer sites for bezel-less LCD displays, which would be my only upgrade that I could imagine for the site. If you run across a 46”+ 1080p zero-bezel display, be sure to send me a link.

The Chief Fusion adjustable wall mounts were quite handy for making minor tweaks to the monitors. It seems that no matter how well you measure, you can never get the displays just perfect, so having the ability to micro-adjust them was quite handy. To allow us to lag-screw them to the wall pretty much anywhere (whether there is a stud or not) we lined the back wall with plywood across the entire wall span and then layered the front with drywall for a finished look. Later on, if we decide to increase the number of monitors into two 9-monitor display arrays, it would be easy enough to add another graphics card, 9 monitors and a second VWBox.

The big secret to turning the project from just a vision to an awe inspiring reality was our most excellent facilities guys and gals. Without their expertise and attention to detail the room could have turned out just ho-hum. They took our ramblings and descriptions of how we’d like things to look and made it come to life. Kudos to them for the room turning out as nice as it did.

Hopefully the information provided here will allow you to build-up your own visualization wall. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them to the site.

Small & Mighty Mini-Top Barebones NetPC

What came in the box

MiniTop Contents

I thought I’d take a minute to share some info on the small and mighty Mini-Top barebones system from Jetway Computer. (Not to be confused with the Small & Mighty Danny Diaz ;?) This unit is basically the guts of a netbook but without the screen so I’ll call it a NetPC. We are thinking about introducing them into the computing site here at work and I was pretty impressed by its feature set and tiny size. Keep in mind that there are several models of ITX barebone systems to choose from over at Jetway. We opted to go with the model JBC600C99-52W-BW, which retails for about $270 at NewEgg. The “-BW” at the end means that it ships with a metal bracket (shown in front of the included remote in pic above) that will allow you to mount the unit to the VESA mounts on the back of most LCD monitors.

Minitop size photo

Smaller than my hand

Since the unit is so small (see pic to the right) this allows you to tuck it it out of the way quite easily behind a monitor. It also comes with an angled metal bracket that allows you to stand it up on its end and stick-on rubber feet in case you want to lay it on its side. Note that this is a “barebones” system, which means that it’s up to you to add the memory (up to 4Gigs of RAM), a single interior hard drive (2.5″ SATA) and a monitor to the mix. We purchased a 60Gig OCZ Agility 2 SSD (solid state drive) to the unit and a couple of Gigs of DDR-2 800/667 SODimm memory to the box (purchased separately).  The unit comes with a driver CD that has both Windows and Linux drivers on it, but since the unit doesn’t have an optical drive you’ll need to copy them to a thumb drive to use them. You’ll also need to figure out how to install an operating system on the unit as well. In our case, since we were installing Windows 7, we used the Windows 7 uSB/DVD Download Tool to take an ISO file version of our Windows 7 install DVD and create a bootable thumb drive with the Win7 install DVD contents on it. Installation was easy peasy.

Hardware specs are pretty impressive given its low cost and small size:

  • Intel Atom Dual-Core 525 CPU
  • nVidia ION2 Graphics Processor
  • DVI-I and HDMI 1.3 video outputs
  • Integrated Gigabit Ethernet & 802.11 b/g/n wifi
  • 12V DC 60W power input so it can be easily run off battery or ships power
  • Microphone and Headphone connectors
  • LCD VESA mount (-BW model only)
  • Jetway handheld remote control
  • USB 2.0 ports (5) and eSata connection

As I mentioned, we’re investigating using these as replacements for some of the computing site computers. We installed Windows 7 on the system and between the dual-core Atom processor and the SSD I can’t tell any difference between performance on this system and the Core-2 Duo desktops that are already in the site. Other possible uses include as a thin client, a kiosk PC, a set-top box for large wall mounted LCD displays and as a small low-power PC aboard ship or inside buoys or other deployed equipment. The unit has both DVI and HDMI outputs, so you can easily drive a small LCD or a huge flat-panel TV as long as they have those inputs (as most do). The nVidia ION-2 graphics system will supposedly drive a full 1080p HD display. I took some pics of the units interior (below) so you can have an idea of how the systems are laid out inside and out.

MiniTop Front Interior View

Front Interior View

MiniTop Rear Interior View

Rear Interior View

MiniTop Side Interior View

Side Interior View

These aren’t the only mini-PCs on the market. There are others like the Zotac ZBox and the Dell  Zino HD and I’m sure plenty of others. They’re just the model that we’re playing with here at the college. Exciting times ahead as these units ramp up in performance and drop down in size and power draw.

Time Lapse Video on the Cheap

The video above is a time lapse of a day in the life of the UD Wind Turbine in Lewes, Delaware.

We were quite excited when they told us that the UD Wind Turbine project was a go. As the time grew near for construction to start, we wanted to chronicle the construction progress and create a time lapse video. I did some research and looked into various webcams with weatherproof housings and the like, but sticker shock at the multi-thousand dollar price tags for the equipment, as well as the networking and power hassles to connect to it made me shy away from a complicated rig. I decided that the best way to go is the simple route.

The task really screamed for a lower cost, battery powered, weather-resistant camera that could be set to take a picture every X number of minutes. I finally narrowed the search down to Wingscapes Birdcam 2.0 outdoor camera. The camera retails for about $200 but I found it on Amazon for just over $150. It has lots of advanced features like motion sensing, light sensing, has a built-in flash plus lots of other nifty features. The main selling points for me were that it was designed for outside use (the turbine was being installed in Spring and it was rainy), it stored its images on an easily accessible secure digital card (up to 4Gigs), it had a user programmable time lapse mode, and it ran on four D-cell batteries for > 4 weeks worth of endurance.

As you can see from the time lapse video that MPEO created of the construction at the turbine base, the results were just what we were looking for (except for the big pile of dirt they put in front of the camera ;?). The video from afar was created using images FTP’d from a webcam located over at the Marine Operations Building. I’ll cover the configuration and components for that webcam setup in a later posting.

I can easily imagine many other uses for this kind device. Time lapse videos of coastal erosion, tide cycles, lab experiment time series, etc. In addition to the features cited above, the camera also has a video and a USB output on the side of the unit as well as an external power connector at the bottom for more lengthy time lapses. All-in-all, highly recommended.

Birdcam Cover Closed

Cover Closed

Birdcam with the cover open

Cover Open

Birdcam Side View

Side View

I used iMovie to create the movie at the top from all of the stills for this post, but I also just as easily created one using the freely downloadable Windows Live Movie Maker if you’re running Windows.

Video Tour of the Research Vessel Hugh R Sharp

RV Hugh R Sharp ready for launchWe recently had guests come down to take a tour of the Lewes campus and the Research Vessel Hugh R Sharp. One of the guests was wheelchair-bound and was limited to only seeing the main deck of the ship as getting to the rest of the ship would have required going up and down stairs. The Sharp has accommodations for handicapped scientists, but they are pretty much limited to the main deck. This limits their access to just the aft working deck, the wet and dry labs, the galley and the conference room. The wheels started turning during that tour on how to share the rest of the technological awesomeness of the Sharp with others. I decided to take my trusty $100 video camera in hand and record a video tour of the ship for those that are unable to navigate the stairs, and for classrooms and visitors who just can’t make the trek to Lewes for a tour. It’s a tad long, running just over 40 minutes or so, but it covers almost the entire ship. Enjoy!

Many thanks to Captain Jimmy Warrington for taking time to do a whirlwind tour just prior to a science mission – as you can tell from the video, he’s a natural at relaying information about the RV Hugh R Sharp and its science capabilities.

Detailed drawings showing deck layouts and profiles of the Sharp can be found the RV Hugh R Sharp landing page, which includes PDFs of:

To help you orient yourself a little bit as to the spaces that were covered, here are some deck diagrams to show the overview of a few of the spaces.

SHARP-AftDeck

Aft Deck

SHARP-DryLab

Dry Lab

SHARP-WetLab

Wet Lab

Polar Orbiting Satellite Receiving Station

The video above is a quick screencast NASA JPL’s Eyes on the Earth application, which shows the tracks of various satellites orbiting the globe. It’s a really cool application that gives a top-notch overview of some of the satellites currently in orbit and their trajectories around the Earth. Take some time and poke around, you’ll be glad you did.

Polar Satellite RadomeThe reason I included it is that I promised to cover the polar orbiting satellite receiving station in a previous blog post about the new Satellite Receiving Station in Delaware. In the previous post I discussed the geostationary satellite receiving station. In this post, I hope to shed some light on the polar orbiting receiving setup.

What’s Inside the Radome

MODIS Satellite PassThe equipment for the polar orbiting satellite receiving station is a bit more involved than the pretty much non-moving geostationary setup. As the name implies, the polar orbiting satellites do just that, they orbit the Earth north and south, going from pole to pole. Their path is relatively simple, they just go around the earth in circles, but as they’re doing so, the Earth is rotating beneath them. The satellites point their cameras towards the earth and essentially capture a swath of data during each rotation. Since the Earth is rotating beneath them, the swath appears as a diagonal path if you look at the overlay.

Inside the RadomeIn order to capture data from a moving target, the dish has to be able to rotate and move in three axis in order to follow the satellite of interest. In order to protect the receiving equipment from the weather, it is typically installed in a circular fiberglass enclosure called a “radome”. To keep the design relatively simple, there is only one mounting configuration and radome setup created, and that’s designed to mount onboard a ship. It is then relatively simple to attach a mounting bracket to the top of a building and bolt the radome assemgly to it.

The video at the top of the page shows that there are several satellites in orbit, so the Terascan software has to pull down satellite ephemeral data from Celestrak each day, take into account the location of the tracking station, and generate a calculated schedule of which satellites will be visible to the satellite dish throughout the day. As there may be more than one satellite in view during any given time period, the satellite operator assigns a priority weighting to each satellite. The Terascan software then uses that weighting to decide which satellite it will aim the dish at and start capturing data.

Receiving Station Workstations

Acquisition and Processing SystemsInside the building is a rack of computers and receivers whose purpose in life is to control the dish on the roof of the building and to receive and process the data it relays down from the satellite. The receiving station at UD has both X and L-Band receivers which receive the data stream and pass it to a SeaSpace Satellite Acquisition Processor. The processor then sends the data packets to a Rapid Modis Processing System (RaMPS) which combines the granularized HDF data files from the satellites into a TeraScan Data File (TDF) file. Once in this format, various programs and algorithms can be run against the TDF file and channels of interest can be combined using NASA/NOAA and other user supplied algorithms to create the output product of interest. As the files can get rather large and there can be several of them coming in throughout the day, they are then moved over to a Networked Attached Storage (NAS) server and stored until they are needed.

Satellites Licensed

The UD receiving station is licensed and configured to receive data from the following satellites:

  • Aqua
  • Terra
  • NOAA 15
  • NOAA 17
  • NOAA 18
  • NOAA 19
  • MetOp-A (Europe)
  • FY-1D (China)

Hopefully this sheds a little more light on the polar orbiting receiving station and its capabilities. Let me know if there are any additions or corrections to the information I’ve posted.

Caley Ocean Systems CTD Handling System

 

One of the interesting innovations on the RV Hugh R Sharp is the incorporation of a “CTD Handling System” from Caley Ocean Systems. The video above was taken from the wet lab of a CTD Rosette being deployed and recovered using this system. If you search around on YouTube, you can find some interesting videos of crews deploying and recovering the CTD Rosette system. What you typically find is that you have one crane operator and then two or three crew members on deck with poles and/or ropes to try and guide the CTD back onto the deck. With the ship rocking and rolling out to sea, this can be a tad dangerous, especially when much of this work is done close to the waterline with waves splashing on deck.

The RV Hugh R Sharp has a CTD handling system that is pretty much designed to be operated by one marine technician, one of two currently in use in the UNOLS fleet (the other is on the RV Kilo Moana).

The marine technician on the Sharp is up on the bridge level and looks down through windows at the wet lab area and beside the ship. This allows them to control the deployment and the recovery of the CTD from a much safer location. The Caley CTD Handling System has motion compensation built in to cancel out the roll and pitch of the ship and is designed to mostly eliminate the swaying of the CTD system.  This makes for a much smoother and safer CTD deployment and recovery, which can occur quite often on many research vessels. The following pictures show the control station up on the bridge and an exterior view of the Caley CTD Handling System onboard the Sharp.

Caley Ocean Systems CTD Handling System - RV Hugh R SharpCTD Handling System Control Station - RV Hugh R SharpView From The Control Station

Next time I’m out on the Sharp, I’ll try to get a view of the system in action from outside the wet lab.

Is the system perfect? No, they still have some kinks to work out and with Caley located over in the UK, turn-around time can be pretty slow at times. The vessel operators are taking some lumps and trying to iron the kinks out of a system that can help make it a little safer to do routine underway CTD casts. Their efforts should be applauded.

Celebrate 10/10/10 Day

This weekend there will be a mystical confluence of mathematic synchronicity that hasn’t been seen in 100 years – that’s 102 years! On Sunday, Oct 10th the date will be 10/10/10. Geeks like me live for such interesting number sequences and I thought it would be neat to take pause and consider the mysterious power of 10’s. To kick things off, the fine folks at Eames Office have posted their classic “Powers of Ten” video online which stretches ones brain as we try to fathom the seemingly symplistic task of scaling our reality up or down by a factor of 10…

It boggles my mind whenever I watch this video. We throw around powers of ten all the time when we describe the world around us, like the volume of the ocean being 1.332×1021 liters or the size of picoplankton which is on the order of 0.2-2 x10-6 meters (or 0.2-2 micrometers). On the electronics side of the house, each jump forward in computing power and efficiency usually coincides with another jump down in trace-width size for integrated circuits and microprocessors – with some of the latest microprocessors being fabricated using 45 nanometer (45×10-9 manufacturing processes.

In recognition of 10/10/10 – the “Powers of Ten” website will be relaunched on Oct 10, 2010. They have a Google Maps link that shows the various events going on worldwide to celebrate this every-100-year event.

Some local events in the US include:

We deal with numbers either written in scientific notation or in engineering notation all the time – take time to share the video with your friends and kids. It will definitely fire up some brain activity trying to fathom the vastness of the universe and infinitesimal tininess of the atomic realm all in one short video clip.

For extra 10 goodness:

Happy 10/10/10 Day!

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