Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Two Mississippi State computer scientists are using a $400,000 federal grant to construct a room-sized display wall for biological imaging and other visualization research projects across academic disciplines.
The grant was acquired this summer through the National Science Foundation's Major Research Instrumentation Program by associate professor J. Edward Swan and assistant professor T.J. Jankun-Kelly. Both are faculty members in the university's department of computer science and engineering, a part of the Bagley College of Engineering.
They plan to house the large-scale, high-resolution, interactive display at MSU's Institute for Neurocognitive Science and Technology, which is building a new Imaging Center for Excellence in partnership with Tupelo-based Premier Radiology.
"Dr. Jankun-Kelly and Dr. Swan work in the area of scientific visualization and are particularly interested in visualization interfaces and human-computer interaction," said CSE department head Julia Hodges.
"The new room-sized display will allow them to study the perceptual and cognitive aspects of such displays," she added. "This equipment also will provide valuable hands-on training for our students in its use, capabilities and limitations."
Stephanie Doane, INST director and a psychology professor, predicted the display wall also will help train students in large-scale biological imaging and visualization, enhance the institute's community outreach effort, and "benefit the ongoing research efforts at INST, the ERC (Engineering Research Center) and the university at large."
INST received a $3 million federal grant last year to purchase a state-of-the-art 3-Telsa Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine. It will be used, among other things, to study the brain functions of pilots for the U.S. Office of Naval Research.
"Eye movements, control movements, flight performance and specific flight situations are used by a computer model to explain and predict real-time human performance in a dynamic task environment," explained Doane.
MSU research vice president Colin Scanes noted INST's collaboration with Premier Radiology also will help foster multidisciplinary research initiatives in the areas of cognitive science/neuroscience, biomedical engineering, veterinary medicine, computer science, electrical and computer engineering, and business. The display wall provides a timely example of that multidisciplinary approach, he said.
Jankun-Kelly and Swan said they will empirically investigate how a display wall changes users' perceptive and cognitive work patterns with visual data. They hope to increase user effectiveness in a variety of domains.
"We propose exploiting the high-resolution capabilities of the display wall in visualization and biomedical imaging," said Jankun-Kelly. "This latter application will dovetail with the INST's recent acquisition of the 3-Telsa MRI for the purpose of analyzing cognitive processes during problem-solving.
"These kinds of research will have a significant and broad impact upon users of display wall technologies and the related research programs within the INST and Mississippi State," he predicted. "Currently, MSU does not possess such equipment and cannot provide its graduates hands-on training in their uses, capabilities and limitations."
Display walls involve a highly accurate alignment of multiple projectors powered by a high-performance graphics cluster. They permit small groups of people to collaboratively examine at one time extraordinarily detailed images and/or related information.
The amount of data involved in such an operation often will not fit within the standard window of a desktop computer display or even on the entire display. The data may include numbers, charts, graphics, video signals, satellite images, or weather maps.
According to Jankun-Kelly and Swan, the elaborate presentation format will feature an arrangement of four projectors that create a seamless display nine feet wide and seven feet tall. The total resolution will be 3200-by-2400 pixels, nearly four times the resolution of a high-definition television (HDTV) display.
"We are excited to see the enthusiasm and energy these two professors have brought to our department in our visualization and computer graphics focus area," said Hodges. "We're also pleased with the collaborations these professors--as well as others from our department--have established with INST."
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Dr. Jankun-Kelly at (662) 325-7504 or tjk@cse.msstate.edu; Dr. Swan at 325-2756 or jes256@msstate.edu; Dr. Hodges at 325-2756 or hodges@cse.msstate.edu; or Dr. Doane at 325-4718 or sdoane@doane.inst.msstate.edu.