Visualization and Multimedia Lab

The research interests of the Visualization and MultiMedia Lab (VMML) cover a wide range of topics in real-time 3D computer graphics, simulation, interactive visualization, large-scale scientific visualization and multimedia technology. Specific current and past research topics include parallel rendering, geometry processing, particle simulation, 3D reconstruction, immersive viewing, advanced rendering, multiresolution modeling, point-based graphics, image-based rendering, geometry compression, mesh simplification, terrain visualization, volume rendering and streaming 3D graphics. Application domains include scientific visualization, immersive multimedia, remote visualization, geographic information systems, virtual environments and massive rendering systems.

Equalizer is the standard middleware to create and deploy parallel OpenGL-based applications. It enables applications to benefit from multiple graphics cards, processors and computers to scale the rendering performance, visual quality and display size. An Equalizer application runs unmodified on any visualization system, from a simple workstation to large scale graphics clusters, multi-GPU workstations and Virtual Reality installations.

vmmlib is a templatized C++ math library for vector, matrix and tensor manipulation. Its basic functionality includes a vector and a matrix class, with additional functionality for the often-used 3d and 4d vectors and 3x3 and 4x4 matrices. More advanced features include solvers, frustum computations and frustum culling classes, and spatial data structures.

vmmlib also offers support for manipulating 3rd-order and 4th-order tensors, as well as several algorithms for tensor approximation of 3D volume data sets (including CP and Tucker decomposition).

A number of large data sets are available for research purposes, including 3D point scans and computed tomography (CT) volumes.