Science at the Speed of Thought - Ambient Intelligence for Scientific Discovery - page 18

at an object with one's hand. But with a geometric pointer embedded in the
three-dimensional scene, there is not such ambiguity. This pointer technique will
also be very useful when collaborative sessions are being run at multiple sites.
It will enable researchers to indicate points of interest to collaborators who are
at different sites.

3.2 3D Chemical Imaging at the Nanoscale

The goal of this project is to develop methods for measuring the distribution
of chemical species in three-dimensional samples at nanoscale resolution. This
work is important for a variety of industrial applications, such as semiconductors,
optoelectronics, and biotechnology. Our role in this project is to develop methods
for visualizing and interacting with datasets of nanoscale phenomena that enable
researchers to investigate three-dimensional structure and interfaces. The data
sets will be produced by different instruments at a variety of scales. In some
respects these data present challenges similar to those in the MMIV project; we
address similar problems of registration and data fusion.
Derived surfaces are a primary means of representing these data sets. For
example, Fig. 13 shows a surface representing a three-dimensional scan of pho-
tonic band gap material. As in the MMIV project, these surfaces are generated
using techniques such as isosurface and level set segmentation methods. As we
get data from more and diverse instruments, we expect that the segmentation of
the data into different chemical species will prove to be a particularly challenging
aspect of the project.
User interaction techniques are a critical component in the exploration of
these data sets. As in the MMIV project, we provide to the user a variety of

Fig. 13. A surface representing a three-dimensional scan of photonic band gap material.