Southampton Scientists visualise the past and build the future on clusters and clouds
Experts from the Microsoft Institute for High Performance Computing are showcasing state-of-the-art techniques for enabling archaeological research and engineering design at the Supercomputing 2010 conference in New Orleans this week.
By leveraging the same software used for Hollywood movies, such as Avatar, Southampton's Archaeological Computing Research Group is able to digitally model how humans lived thousands of years ago. Dr Graeme Earl explains "Speeding up our rendering from a week to half an hour on our supercomputer is transforming the way we are able to think about the past. We are able to rapidly visualise the ancient world in ways that are almost indistinguishable from reality".
Ground-breaking computer-generated imagery (CGI) from the Catalhöyök and Portus sites will be on display at the conference, put together from multi-national excavations over several decades. These include a 60 megapixel photo-realistic rendering of a Neolithic house, and animations of Portus.
Southampton spin-out company dezineforce is also showcasing how engineers are now able to take advantage of Cloud Computing to go beyond the limits of their own IT systems. Professor Simon Cox, CTO of dezineforce and co-Director of the Institute, describes how this approach can transform businesses, "Engineering design is changing. Driving down costs, producing products that are cheaper to build, more reliable, use less material, and get to market faster, is forcing smarter product development. Scalability and transparency delivered seamlessly from clients through clusters to clouds delivers engineering resources that are always available when needed."
Dr Kenji Takeda, co-Director of the Institute, adds, "By working with Microsoft we are able to exploit industry-standard tools and technologies to rapidly demonstrate step changes in capability for researchers and engineers."
The Institute continues to work with world-leading researchers and global industry to develop novel computing approaches to everything from drug design and climate change, to designing cleaner and quieter airliners, and Formula One cars.
Notes for editors
1. The Microsoft Institute for High Performance Computing was created in November 2005 at the University of Southampton. Led by Professor Simon Cox and Dr Kenji Takeda in the School of Engineering Sciences, the Institute pushes state-of-the-art technologies to tackle real-world scientific and engineering problems. World-class researchers in the School of Engineering Sciences work closely with industrial partners that span the aerospace, automotive, bioengineering, marine and telecommunications sectors. See
www.mihpc.net
2. Dezineforce are leaders in solutions to help engineers work more productively by enabling them to design better products using fewer resources. Dezineforce solutions are delivered ‘engineer ready' eliminating the systems integration and IT overheads associated with implementing advanced engineering analysis. Available as a cloud based ‘On-Demand' solution that removes the need for capital expenditure, or as an on-site ‘cluster' that provides shared resources to multiple engineers as a ‘private cloud' the Dezineforce solutions provide increased insight to engineers using the majority of commercially available design analysis tools. For further details about Dezineforce please visit
www.dezineforce.com
, or call us on +44 (0)1489 611842