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February 14, 2012

LSU Taps Visualization Toolsets

Robert Gelber

Visualization is one of the top big data trends to watch this year, and with good reason. If so much time and treasure were spent on capturing and storing huge amounts data, creating analytical models for information that could not have been obtained otherwise, then why stop there and fail to put the data in a form that most humans can understand?

This is why having intuitive interfaces are so important, a tech admin has the time to learn about all of the ins and outs of new software and hardware (that is their job after all), but executives typically don’t have that luxury and might not be so willing to spend hours, days, or even weeks trying to draw answers from an impressive system that lacks a decent interface.

Visual Sciences Group (VSG) is a company that’s been through multiple names (TSG  most recently) and owners over the past 20 years, while maintaining a focus on data visualization. The company’ main goal is to provide both industry and the scientific community with visualization tools, including its more popular Avizo packages.

Today, VSG has announced that Louisiana State University has agreed to the licensing of the company’s Avizo big data visualization software to be used for an honors multi-disciplinary 3D imaging class.

LSU is well known for producing NFL caliber players, but it has the brains to match that brawn, with notable alumni James Andrews, founder of the American Sports Medicine Institute and Maxime Faget, former NASA engineering and development director. The university is only 1 of 30 institutions that currently hold grants in the fields of sea, land and space.

The Honors multi-disciplinary 3D imaging class using the Avizio software will incorporate students from the mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science, geology and biological science departments.

VSG currently offers two products. The first is Open Inventor, a 3D SDK that companies can use to create applications using VSG’s framework. The second offering is the Avizo software family. The Avizo family currently comes in 5 flavors and also offers additional modules:

Avizo Standard –scientific visualization

Avizo Fire           – materials science & Industrial Inspection

Avizo Wind        – simulation data

Avizo Earth        – geosciences, oil and gas

Avizo Green       – environment and climate

The standard version offers scientific, volume, mesh and surface visualization. The offering also allows for the import of scientific data and has a Calculus Matlab module allowing the application to read and write the Matlab file format.

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