Workshop on Interoperability of DOE Visualization Centers
Invitation Letter

The Mathematical, Information, and Computational Sciences (MICS)
Division, Office of Energy Research, DOE, would like to invite you, or
another lead technical member of your scientific visualization group,
to participate in a workshop on Interoperability of Visualization
Software developed by DOE researchers.

The purpose of the workshop is to address technical issues relevant to
the interchange and sharing of visualization research and software. The
goal of the workshop is to produce a document that identifies
technically-feasible solutions to the challenges posed by using tools
developed in unfamiliar and sometimes incompatible environments.

Each National Laboratory should be represented by at least one person
who has both a broad view of scientific visualization research at
his/her institution and in-depth technical knowledge related to the
design and implementation of visualization software.  From each
institution, one additional attendee is welcomed, and expected to take
part in the general discussion sessions as well as to contribute to the
working groups.  Scientific visualization experts from outside the DOE
community and users of visualization software have also been invited to
participate.

The workshop will be hosted by the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory on behalf of MICS.

        Dates:     March 30, 31, April 1
        Location:  Berkeley Marina Radisson
                   Berkeley, California


                Nancy Johnston

RSVP:  nejohnston@lbl.gov
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 Workshop on Interoperability of DOE Visualization Centers
                               Agenda
                      March 30, 31, & April 1

        
This workshop intends to identify common issues and needs of the
scientific visualization centers within DOE, concerning ongoing R&D and
tool interchange.  Participants will draft a report identifying
solutions to challenges posed by the overall goal of carrying out
efficient visualization research, support, and tool-sharing.

The first day (March 30) will be devoted to reports from the various
institutions, and invited attendees.  Each institution will give a ten
minute presentation, plus five minutes for questions and answers. Each
presentation should identify topics of visualization research which are
a near- and medium-term priority at the institution.  A diverse
spectrum of topics is expected, including, but not limited to
visualization algorithms, distributed visualization, and architecture
of visualization infrastructure software development environments.
These presentations and the submitted white papers will form the basis
for discussion and exploration in the working groups.

The second day (March 31) will be devoted to working-group discussion
of the major topic areas.

The last half day (April 1) will be devoted to writing the draft
report, which will be available at the end of the workshop.

The major topic areas are:

Major Challenges:
     The DOE Laboratories have been and are making significant 
     R&D progress in the field of visualization. What are the
     outstanding research problems in visualization facing us
     in the next five to ten years, and how can we make sure
     that the Laboratories will have the funding to pursue the
     solutions to these problems?  How can we take advantage
     of research in other federally-funded programs, such as
     ASCI?  How can centers share and exchange software with
     other centers which may use a different visualization 
     infrastructure?

Software:
     A broad range of tools and packages is available for the
     visualization of scientific data.  New algorithms and
     techniques are being developed in the commercial sector and
     the national laboratories.  With all this software, it is
     difficult for the scientific user to know which visualization
     package to use, how to use it (each has a different user
     interface), and how to take advantage of a new algorithm
     developed at another laboratory.  What are the challenges
     and barriers to sharing the results of our research and
     development? Can we take advantage of a common API? Can we
     build on or use what the ACT Toolkit group is doing?

Communication:
     The DOE visualization community has historically
     communicated with each other in many ways; among them,
     the DOE Computer Graphics Forum, the IEEE Visualization
     conference, joint projects, email, etc. These methods
     have not always included all the labs nor been frequent
     enough.  How can we improve this communication? What are
     the barriers to interoperability between facilities,
     programs and people?  Can we utilize the new conferencing
     tools from the DOE Collaboratories?


Before the Workshop:

We request that each institution submit a white paper before
the workshop (deadline: March 20 1998) in html format.  These
reports, along with other information, will be published on the
web at:

        http://www-vis.lbl.gov/DOEvis.html

Printed copies will also be available to you when you arrive at the
workshop.  Reports should be organized by the following categories:

a.   High-level directions and priorities at your facility

b.   Broad views on future research activities for the next two
     years.  What are the priorities at your facility?

c.   What barriers or obstacles do you face with meeting 
     (a.) and (b.)?

d.   What visualization tools are important to your program
     today and in the near future?  We would like to compile a
     list of the software you currently use on the web.  If the
     software you are using is locally developed, please supply
     the html link.

Logicstical Information:

Go to a list of invited participants

Back to Workshop home page

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