Spotlight on ARC and Visionarium Lab led by Nicholas Polys

Nicholas Polys, affiliate professor of Computer Science and director of visual computing for VT Advanced Research Computing (ARC), showed the latest Web-wide immersive and interactive 3D graphics innovations and applications from ARC and the Visonarium Lab, which he also directs at SIGGRAPH 2023. His group showcased a timeline of computer graphics history, presented innovations in ‘Immersive Cartography,’ discussed upgrades to the X3D graphics standard, and explored ways to integrate the Metaverse with the World Wide Web. Their work highlighted Virginia Tech’s role in advancing 3D graphics and digital mapping technologies. See this ARC Report for more details on the research and presentations.

ARC is a VT Division of Information Technology unit that provides centralized research computing infrastructure and support for the VT research community. Available resources include high-performance computing systems, large-scale data storage, visualization facilities, software, and consulting services accessible to faculty and students across all disciplines. ARC welcomes researchers of all experience levels.

The Visonarium Lab supports the adoption of supercomputing and visual analysis tools by faculty and students to advance science, engineering, and education. The Visionarium facilitates effective usage and access to cutting-edge tools that integrate with researchers’ data, questions, and workflows through educational and support services. The Visionarium lab members organized a great showing at the ACM Web3D 2023 conference, held in October 2023 in San Sebastian, Spain. Lab members participated through papers, posters, workshops, tutorials, and panels (see below). Ayat Mohammed, who recently rejoined ARC’s computational science team, also served as tutorial chair for the Web3D 2023 conference. 

Peer-reviewed research from the Visionarium Lab at Web3D 2023 includes (CHCI members in bold):

1. Full Paper: “Increasing Web3D Accessibility with Audio Captioning”, Nicholas Polys and Mohd Sheeban Wasi
2. Short Paper: “Integrating XR Content in X3DOM: Supporting Navigation and Custom Functions in X3D Scenes”, Raghav Sethi, Andreas Plesch, Timo Sturm and Nicholas Polys
   
3. Short Paper: “Immersive Cross-platform X3D Training: Elevating Construction Safety Education”, Nazila Roofigari-Esfahan, Nicholas Polys, Ashley Johnson, Todd Ogle and Ben Sandbrook
   
4. Short Paper: “Enhancing Brain Flow Visualization with Automated 3D Data Processing: A Study on DCE-MRI Data from Mice with Tumors”, Ayat Mohammed, Nicholas Polys, Jessica Cunningham, Jenny Munson, James Chutkowski, Hun Liang, Daniel Park, Russell Rockne, Ryan Woodall and Cora Esparza
   

Recently, the Visionarium played a pivotal role in enhancing the understanding of fluid flow in brain tumors for cancer research. By collaborating with Jennifer Munson’s team from the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, the Visionarium team created 3D visualizations of tumor environments. See more details in the VT news story. Dr. Polys has also been elected a 3D Web Working Group Co-Chair in the Metaverse Standards Forum, a new industry alliance focused on interoperability.

Polys has recently been invited to establish a new column for the IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications digital library department @theSource. @theSource highlights innovations in the open source and open standards graphics community. The department is broadly concerned with how open communities and ecosystems have (and are) impacting computer graphics. Submissions are live, and the team is actively soliciting contributions from the international community. 

Polys highlighted the valuable resources offered by ARC, stating:“The resources available through ARC can up any game on campus or off. We are fortunate that our faculty and students have access to such world-class computing and visualization platforms that open new innovations and get real work done!”