NASA Data Analysis and Visualization Scientist Nina McCurdy discusses NASA’s hyperwall as it displays a view of the “Pillars of Creation” at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View on Nov. 8. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
A massive visualization system that spans a large stretch of a wall at NASA’s Ames Research Center is having a big impact on scientists, who are traveling from all over the world to pore over the display for research.
Dubbed the hyperwall, the 300 square-foot display gives scientists the opportunity to see and analyze high-dimensional data at an unprecedented scale and in great detail. With 128 screens and over a billion pixels, the fourth-generation hyperwall is one of the largest and most powerful visualization systems in the world, according to NASA.
At its core, the hyperwall is a supercomputer, said Nina McCurdy, a NASA data analysis and visualization scientist. “We get really excited whenever we hear about a project with loads and loads of data that are difficult to manage, because that’s what we’re set up to do,” McCurdy said, standing in front of an enormous image of the universe.
NASA Data Analysis and Visualization Scientist Nina McCurdy discusses NASA’s hyperwall as it displays visual data on ocean currents around the world at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View on Nov. 8. The hyperwall consists of 128 4k monitors (16 monitors across and 8 monitors in height) and creates a billion pixel facility for visualizing data. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
NASA Senior Research Scientist David Ellsworth points to a pillar of observational data on ocean currents displayed on NASA’s hyperwall at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View on Nov. 8. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
A wide view of a section of space is seen on NASA’s hyperwall at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View on Nov. 8. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
NASA Data Analysis and Visualization Scientist Nina McCurdy discusses NASA’s hyperwall as it displays visual data on ocean currents around the world at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View on Nov. 8. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.Taken from the Spitzer Space Telescope, the display is a composite of 800,000 frames, showing supernova bubbles and remnants at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. It’s possible to zoom in and pick out individual stars, but also to stand back and detect patterns and anomalies, a feature that makes the hyperwall particularly appealing to researchers.
“We’re leveraging our perceptual cognitive skills that we’ve honed over our entire lifetimes to analyze data in a new way,” McCurdy said.
Each screen of the hyperwall is connected to a “computer node” that is tied into Pleiades, a powerful supercomputer linked to the hyperwall by miles of video cable. “The computer allows us to do all kinds of things, like real time and near-real time processing, rendering and analysis,” McCurdy said.
With the high pixel count, it often is the case that the observational data is of higher resolution than model data, capturing what these models miss, McCurdy said. The observations then lead to new theorizations that can be incorporated into new models.
But the hyperwall is more than just a scientific instrument, it’s also good at bringing people together in the same room to collaborate on research. They have to be there to see it, McCurdy said. What can take months in a lab can be accomplished in a day or two using the hyperwall, she added.
The hyperwall has been up and running since last spring, although the team is still working on building out some of its features. “It’s already very functional but it’s kind of a live beast,” McCurdy laughed. It’s also great for storytelling, she noted, gesturing to the universe panning behind her.
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