
AVS 93 Video Review Theater


AVS 93 Video Theater Introduction
Chris Landreth, MCNC

Finite Element and Finite Difference Results
John Mareda and colleagues, Sandia National Labs

Sandia is using video animation and AVS to help them solve 
problems in engineering science. Applications are based on 
finite element and finite difference calculations in the 
areas of high velocity impact physics, shock wave physics, 
structural dynamics, structural mechanics, thermodynamics, 
and fluid mechanics. 

Silicon Band Structure
Franklin Bodine, National Center for Computational 
Electronics, Beckman Institute

This animation shows the first conduction band of silicon in 
momentum space.  An energy isosurface is colored according 
to the phonon scattering rate at that point.  The isosurface 
level is varied to show the energy range from 0.5 to 2.8 eV.  
A slice plane also shows the variation of energy in momentum 
space.  This conduction band data is vital to producing 
accurate simulations of transistors with high energy 
electrons.

Simulation of Hyperthermia-Induced Power Depositions Using 
FEM
Scott Clegg, Duke  University Medical Center

The essence of this video is a demonstration of the use of 
AVS to visualize the simulated power deposition induced in 
hyperthermia cancer patients.  The first part shows basic 
anatomical features of a patient whose treatment will be 
simulated.  The anatomical features (skin and bone) were 
obtained from a serial CT scan, which then had those 
features outlined for each CT slice.  The outline data was 
used to generate the surface rendered data seen in the first 
part of the video.  The second part of the video shows the 
finite element mesh that we constructed to simulate this 
patient; note the attempt to conform the mesh to the skin 
surface of the patient. The final portion of the video 
illustrates via isosurface renderings, the simulated power 
deposition.


Microburst
James V. Aanstoos and R. Jorge Montoya, Research Triangle 
Institute
Dave Bock, MCNC

Low-altitude wind shear poses a major hazard to aircraft 
during takeoff and landing and has been blamed for the loss 
of hundreds of lives in airplane crashes.  The NASA Wind 
Shear Model, also known as TASS/Terminal Area Simulation 
System, has been used to study this phenomenon as part of an 
effort to develop detection systems for these hazards.  The 
data used in the accompanying visualization was generated by 
TASS and initialized with meteorological conditions existing 
at the time of an actual microburst event, which caused an 
air transport crash near Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.

CM/AVS Sampler
Thinking Machines Corporation

CM/AVS is an extension of AVS that allows modules to run on 
the massively parallel connection machine CM-5 
supercomputer.  A module running on the CM-5 behaves like 
any other remote module and may be freely interconnected 
with standard AVS modules.

This video shows applications run with CM/AVS.  All were 
computed on the CM-5 and visualized with modules running on 
the CM-5 and various workstations.

Direct Methods in Crystallography
This video demonstrates the determination of molecular 
structure from experimentally determined X-ray amplitudes.  
Relationships between groups of phases can be minimized 
iteratively to modify random starting structures to produce 
correct final structures.

We show convergence first on a small molecule and then on a 
larger one.  Atoms in the unit cell are shown as spheres.  
Lines indicate possible chemical bonds.  As the structures 
are not fully refined, some spurious bonds are drawn; but 
the major features of the underlying molecular structures 
are readily apparent.

Interactive Flow Visualization
An interactive environment on the CM-5 aids visualization of 
results of 3-D fluid flow simulations.  The input is a set 
of precomputed time-discreet 3-D velocity vectors on a grid.  
In this case, data is from a numerical approximation of flow 
over and airfoil at a 50 degree angle of attack.
Tools provided mimic those in experimental apparatus 
(passive advection of tracer particles, bubble wire 
injection, and dye/smoke injection).

DNA Octamer
Dr. Uli Schmitz, UCSF
Roger Edberg, Supercomputer Facility, Australian National 
University
TRP Repressor
Dr. Jeanmarie Guenot, UCSF
Roger Edberg, Supercomputer Facility, Australian National 
University
Octaplane
Dr. Mark McGrath, ANU
Roger Edberg, Supercomputer Facility, Australian National 
University
Decarbonylation Reactions
Dr. Tony Scott, ANU
Roger Edberg, Supercomputer Facility, Australian National 
University

These four excerpts are taken from four chemistry animation 
sequences done using AVS.  The first two segments were made 
with the help of a module written by Roger Edberg.  The 
third and fourth segments were produced using some modules 
from AVS Chemistry Viewer (MSI).  All of the sequences were 
produced on a DECstation 5000/240 running AVS 4.0.  The 
above excerpts were produced in a collaborative project with 
Fujitsu Ltd.

Front Range Blizzard
Paula McCaslin, National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration, Forecast Systems Laboratory

This segment shows an application of the use of AVS at NOAA 
Forecast Systems Laboratory.  It is a three-dimensional 
model forecast of the Colorado Front Range blizzard that 
occurred on March 8, 1992, and is viewed from southeast 
Colorado.  Each object used to investigate the data appears 
separately on the screen to emphasize the complexity of the 
end product.  The white isosurface depicts liquid water at 
0.6 g/kg and represents the area of significant clouds.  The 
red area within the cloud represents significant icing 
threat for small aircraft.  The script simulates a flight 
landing as Stapleton International Airport.  We approach 
from the northeast toward the southeast into Denver and are 
redirected south for a second approach.  The colored cross 
section depicts surface temperatures.  The white wind barbs 
indicate direction and speed of the surface winds.  The 
solid purple line shows the approximate location of the 
surface front.  Upper-level winds are displayed on two 
vertical line probes.  The station plots display actual 
observations and serve as verification for the model 
forecast.  The second approach is successful.  We fly 
through the red zone of ice, change the transparency of both 
isosurfaces, and land at Stapleton.

Exploring Dynamical Systems of 2-D and 3-D Ordinary 
Differential Equations (ODEs) with AVS
Alan Barnum-Scrivener, Advanced Visual Systems (AVS), Inc.

Since reading Chaos -- Making a New Science by James 
Gleick, I have been interested in visualizing ODEs (or 
change rules as Dr. Alan Garfinkel of UCLA calls them).  
After several false starts writing my own mappers to display 
a single trajectory of a system, I realized that the 
particle advector module in AVS allows display of many 
trajectories at once, giving a more global view of a 
systems behavior.  All I needed was a way to create a 
vector field based on the ODEs.  The elegant solution to 
this would to be to write a module that parses equations 
from an input text string and then generates the field.  (In 
fact, a student at University of California, Irvine, has 
done this, and the staff there have promised to donate it to 
the IAC.)  But meanwhile, I didnt want to have to write my 
own parser, so I used this kludge: I put the equations in a 
file in C syntax and then use a script to concatenate this 
file with pieces of code to create the source to an input 
module, which I then compile and read into a simple network.  
For example:

	xdot = y;     ydot = -x;

are the equations for a simple harmonic oscillator.  With 
this method, I can visualize any 2-D or 3-D system of ODEs 
in minutes.  Armed with this tool, I sat down with some 
books, including Dynamics -- The Geometry of Behavior by 
Abraham and Shaw, and just typed in equations and visualized 
them.  This technique allows me to reach an intuitive 
understanding of equations I cannot solve (often equations 
nobody can solve).

AVS Trial and Error
Joachim Biercamp, German Center for Climate Computation

This sequence is a compilation of geological and earth 
sciences data, particle traces, satellite data, and ocean 
wave spectra data from an ERS - 1 SAR wave mode image 
spectra.

Lubricating Air Flow Between Magnetic Head Slider and Hard 
Disk
Bunichiro Fujii, Sony Corporation

We visualized the numerically simulated lubricating flow 
between the hard disk and the magnetic head slider using 
AVS. The flow generates the pressure to keep the distance 
constancy between them. The distances are less than one 
micron in general hard disk drive systems. It is super low 
altitude. 

Carbon Monoxide Distribution in Los Angeles
Ruiyan Lin, Atmospheric Sciences Department, UCLA

This is a one-day time sequence of images displaying carbon 
monoxide distribution in Los Angeles.

Tracer Trajectory
Ruiyan Lin, Atmospheric Sciences Department, UCLA

This sequence includes two trajectories and their 
projections on the earth in different seasons.  The 
trajectory method is one of the most important methods used 
in atmospheric science research.

Mantle Convection
Lee Silverman, Brown University
Sea Surface Temperature
Lee Silverman, Brown University
Dans Head: A Late-Night Graphics Lab Hack
Dan Robbins and Lee Silverman, Brown University

The first video is a compilation of a series of test 
visualizations for the project that I described in the AVS 
newsletter (Volume 1, issue 4). The visualization is of 
motion in a volumetrically heated, turbulently convecting 
(Rayleigh number = 10e7), infinite Prandtl number fluid 
cooling from the top of a confining box.  In this situation, 
temperature is advected with the fluid, so visualizing 
temperature is a good way to see the motion in the fluid. 
The green surface represents an isothermal sheet drawn at a 
low-range temperature, the movement of which through time 
indicates that columns of cold fluid form at the top of the 
box and fall to the bottom, their descent unchecked by the 
volumetric heating.  The central plane shows warm halos 
around these cold columns, which indicate that hot fluid is 
being drawn down by the falling cold fluid. The bottom plane 
shows that the average temperature at the bottom of the box 
is lower than the average temperature of the middle of the 
box.  In this video, blue is the coolest and red is the 
hottest; but blue is only found in the centers of the 
columns, so the lowest temperatures are represented by 
green. 

The second video shows an animation of sea surface 
temperature data.

The third animation was created as the title suggests-- as a 
late-night hack.

CFD Simulation Using AVS-FLOW
ADAM NET, Ltd.

This video segment demonstrates the AVS-FLOW tool, which is 
used to visualize CFD results calculated by differential 
methods.  

Simulations Using AVS-Structure
ADAM NET, Ltd.

AVS-STRUCTURE is a powerful post processor system for 
complex structural analysis results.  It supports ABAQUS and 
NASTRAN data formats, in addition to its own.  Both AVS-FLOW 
and AVS-STRUCTURE run on top of AVS and were developed 
jointly by ADAM NET, Ltd. and TOSHIBA Corporation.

NRL Video Gallery
Upul Obeysekare and colleagues, Naval Research Laboratory

The four segments in this video sequence are as follows.
1. Volume visualization technique using ray-tracing is being 
used to visualize the time dependent results from a 
numerically simulated square jet.  
2. Computer simulation of a 3-D underwater explosion bubble 
broaching the free surface.
3. Results from a molecular dynamics simulation are being 
used to examine the momentum transfer and the associated 
relative motion between an atom and its immediate 
surroundings in dilute atomic mixtures.  
4. Molecular dynamics simulation of detonation in a solid 
high explosive with crystal defects.

Mount Redoubt Volcano Eruption Visualization
Dr. Mitch Roth and Charles S. Jones, University of Alaska, 
Fairbanks

The visualization portrays the eruption of Mount Redoubt, a 
volcano near Anchorage, Alaska, and the subsequent movement 
of clouds of airborne ash.  An eruption on the morning of 
December 15, 1989, sent ash particles more than 40,000 feet 
into the atmosphere. The animation combines the motion of 
the viewer with the time evolution of the ash cloud over a 
digital terrain model.  The ash cloud is rendered using 
volume texture mapping.   High particle densities are 
colored dark gray, and lower densities are light gray. The 
opacity of the cloud varies from opaque for high densities 
to transparent for zero densities. The rendering obtained 
through this texture mapping technique gives the viewer a 
visual effect corresponding to the particle densities 
involved. Details of the plume shape are highlighted through 
lighting effects, and the resulting geometry can be 
manipulated interactively to view the ash cloud from any 
desired direction.

The visualization is based on the output of a model 
developed by Dr. Hiroshi Tanaka of the Geophysical Institute 
of the University of Alaska and Tsukuba University in Japan. 
Using meteorological data and eruption parameters for input, 
the model predicts the density of volcanic ash particles in 
the atmosphere as a function of time.  The three-dimensional 
lagrangian form of the diffusion equation is employed to 
model particle diffusion, taking into account the size 
distribution of the ash particles and gravitational settling 
described by Stokes law.

The eruption animation of Mount Redoubt Volcano was produced 
using AVS on the University of Alaska Arctic Region 
Supercomputing Center CRAY-MP in a collaborative effort by 
Geophysical Institute and Arctic Region Supercomputing 
Center staff.

Molecular Orbital Studies
Douglas A. Smith, Department of Chemistry, University of 
Toledo

We have been studying the quantum structure-property 
relationships relevant to opto-electronic materials, more 
specifically the relationships of chemical and electronic 
structure to nonlinear optical properties of molecules.  
Through molecular orbital calculations and visualization, we 
have observed and cataloged specific changes in total 
polarizability, molecular orbital polarizability, and 
perturbations in the molecular orbitals themselves (shown in 
this video) as a function of a static electric field vector.  
Correlation of these observations with molecular structure 
in order to achieve a predictive capability is our current 
goal.

Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Granular Materials 
Hans J. Herrmann and Gerald H. Ristow, Research Centre 
Juelich, Central Institute for Applied Mathematics

This is a simulation of behavior of granular materials like 
lead beads, pills, powders, or grains of sand. Vertical 
vibrations (on a vibrating table with and without walls), 
outflow from a hopper, outflow from an upper chamber through 
a hole into a lower chamber of equal size, and flow through 
a pipe was investigated. Velocities of particles are color-
coded (blue - low velocity, red - high velocity). Fluid-like 
behavior, size segregation, and formation of density waves 
can be observed.

Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Polymer Systems
Kurt Kremer, Ralph Everaers, Norbert Attig, and Zenon 
Zowierucha, Research Centre Juelich, Central Institute for 
Applied Mathematics

Polymer networks are constructed of crosslinked chain 
molecules. The video shows the stretching and swelling of a 
model consisting of several interpenetrating polymer 
networks. A polymer is modeled as a chain of spheres. It can 
be observed that only a few chains take up most of the 
stress. The radii of the spheres are proportional to the 
amount of the bond tension acting on them. This is supported 
also by color coding (blue - low tension, red - high 
tension). When the tension exceeds a certain threshold, the 
monomers are connected by a tube. It can be seen that the 
tension is built up along a small number of paths through 
the system.

Dynamic Enhanced Recovery Technologies
Robin Reynolds and Roger N. Anderson, Global Basins Research 
Network, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

The images depict hydrocarbon migration pathways in the 
subsurface of the Gulf Coast of the United States.  These 
streams represent a whole new production target, or PLAY, 
that could greatly influence our U.S. oil reserves estimates 
in the future.  At the present time, only the pools or 
reservoirs filled by these streams are produced.  The data 
sets used in this study are 3-D multichannel seismic 
reflection and well data.  The visualization techniques 
evolve from Supercomputer-generated Wavefront Technologies 
images, through IBM Power Visualization images, to the much 
more interactive and useful workstation/AVS imaging 
technologies.

Analysis of Doppler Radar Data By 3-D Computer Graphics
Hideo Miyachi, Kubota Corporation
Masayuki Maki and Hiroshi Ohkura, National Research 
Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention

The recent development of 3DCG, the increase in speed and 
capacity, and the decrease in cost provide us many 
advantages in the analysis of the volume scan data od 
Doppler radar.  The sophisticated man-machine processing of 
3DCG releases us from tedious work such as programming and 
debugging  The perspective representation of radar data 
enable us to interpret the radar echoes more effectively and 
more intuitively.  We can call this type of display three-
dimensional indicator (TDI) corresponding to the naming of 
PPI and RHI.  When the time required for the image data 
processing performed in the present study will be shortened, 
TDI will be a standard display method of radar data.

Impact of Tunneling on the Groundwater Table
Harald Mayer and George Thallinger, Joanneum Research

The video contains live video sequences and four animations 
generated with the help of AVS. The four animations are as 
follows.

1. Isolines of pressure in a vertical cross section.
2. The groundwater table color coded by height during an 8 
week construction stop.
3. The moving groundwater table during the 20 week 
construction period of the tunnel.  Here the use of a 
traditional grouting method is simulated.  The groundwater 
table is color coded by height, additionally a gray bar 
shows the construction progress.  Particles on the water 
table show velocity and direction of the groundwater table.
4. This sequence shows with the same as above the impact of 
the advance grouting method.


Copyright 1993 MCNC.  Not to be duplicated in any form 
without the express written permission of MCNC.

Scott Barber, MCNC,Information Technologies Division
David Bennett, MCNC, International AVS Center
Sandra Hedrick, MCNC, International AVS Center
Chris Landreth, MCNC, Information Technologies Division
Katie Mohrfeld, MCNC, International AVS Center
Dianne Sanders, MCNC, International AVS Center
Steve Thorpe, MCNC, International AVS Center
Ed Williams, MCNC, Information Technologies Division


AVS'93 User Group Conference

Scientific Visualization Video Review

The International AVS Center is producing NTSC VHS copies of 
the AVS '93 Video Review, which contains many high quality 
AVS animations from users around the world:

AVS'93 Video Review (two options)
o Highlights (approximately 45 minutes)
o Long Version (approximately 120 minutes, has many 
  additional clips)

The contents of these video highlights can be found via anonymous
ftp to the file avs.ncsc.org:order_forms/VideoReviewProgram.txt.

If you would be interested in purchasing copies of the Video 
Review, please fill out the information below and mail it 
with your check or money order to the IAC at:

The International AVS Center
MCNC
PO Box 12889
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
USA
Tel: 919-248-1100
Fax: 919-248-1101
Email: avs@ncsc.org

Please send copie(s) of the AVS '93 Video Review to the 
address noted below.  I have enclosed a check or money order 
payable to the International AVS Center for the indicated 
amount, in US funds.

                                   No     Unit Cost   Total
Video Review Highlights		    	      $45         
Long Version Video Review		      $58         
           Total Enclosed	    	

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