Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL)

Posted June 18, 2018
Share

The Advanced Visualization Lab - part of The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois - bridges the gap between science and the arts, by creating high-resolution data-driven cinematic-quality visualizations.

AVL's AJ Christensen and Kalina Borkiewicz talk about how they apply Houdini's strengths in data-driven visual effects to create cinematic scientific visualizations.

One example they highlight was for the IMAX film "A Beautiful Planet" - showcasing the imagery collected by astronauts on the International Space Station over several years. The AVL team created imagery using Houdini to fly through stars and arrive at a 'foreign' planet which might one day support life.

One challenge they faced was importing complex scientific data in a variety of formats - and so they developed an open-source middleware importer for YT data - called ytini - which helps bring that data into Houdini.


COMMENTS

  • harryabreu 6 years, 5 months ago  | 

    Congratulation to The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
    SideFX congratulation, I am very proud to use and learning Houdini every day.
    Let's go procedural.

  • xilofoton 6 years, 5 months ago  | 

    Thanks for sharing!
    Instantly landed in sciVfx's list :) There is the AVL demo reel too with many others which are related to the interdisciplinary field of science&VFX:
    https://scivfx.wordpress.com/list/visualization/astronomy/

Please log in to leave a comment.