Science at the Speed of Thought - Ambient Intelligence for Scientific Discovery - page 21

suitable for loading into the immersive environment. In this case, an existing file
loader implements a flip topic style animation. The input pipe line thus quickly
converts the data of atomic positions at each time step into an visual stick
figure representation of the each atom, which animates for the duration of the
simulation time frame. Since only a small part of the input pipeline needed new
software, the project implementation time was short. The newly created software
filter focuses on producing the stick figure representations for the atoms, while
the existing file loader handles the task of animating the atoms.
As mentioned above, within minutes of being immersed in the animation,
the primary scientists involved realized their previously conceived ideas about
which molecules attached to the clay were reversed.
The wide range of our current scientific collaborations has led to an enhanced
set of VL tools in the areas of surface and volume rendering and display, creative
data representations, animation, and time series data analysis.

3.4 Nanostructures

In the nano-optics project we are working with NIST scientists to understand
atomic scale variation in the calculated properties of nano-scale structures.
The data that we receive consists of atom positions and values for s and p

orbitals. We represent each atom with a sphere that corresponds to the s orbital

and appropriate shapes for the x, y, and z orbitals. The size of these geometric

forms correspond to the calculated values. The colors of the atoms correspond
to the element.
As in the other applications, we use our approach of loosely coupled tools to
convert the incoming data to the desired geometric representation. In this case,
our primary set of tools is the Glyph ToolBox (GTB). These tools facilitate the
creation, sizing, and coloration of the orbital shapes.
As part of the creation of these geometric representations, we segment the
data into subsets of atoms based on orbital size and symmetry (

p

)and
on the spatial location of the atoms. User interactions were implemented using
our standard menu tools within the immersive environment. These interactions
enable the user to turn on and off the different subsets of atoms. This lets the
user explore various features of the nano-scale structures. A sample image from
this project is shown in Fig. 9.

s or p

4 Conclusions and Future Work

According to Louis Pasteur “In the field of observation, chance favors only the
prepared mind” [44]. Scientists are prepared, but can we increase chance? We
believe representation and interaction drive discovery , and when applied
in the most general sense with the tools of immersive visualization, data mining
and other analysis, it is possible to accelerate concept development.
In our current scientific world of increasing computing power, parallel lab-
oratory experiments and enormous data sets to explore, a Virtual Laboratory