Data-Driven Movies from the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio
The NASA Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) produces beautiful data-driven images and videos in order to promote a greater understanding of Earth and space sciences. They work closely with scientists — both within NASA and across the broader academic research community — to create high-fidelity scientific visualizations with Hollywood filmmaking tools. The videos being shown at SC24 provide a sampling of visualizations the SVS has created from datasets generated by models run on supercomputers and other high-performance computing resources. Topics include a coronal mass ejection hitting Earth’s magnetosphere using the Multiscale Atmosphere-Geospace Environment (MAGE) model, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions circling the planet in the DYnamics of the Atmospheric general circulation Modeled On Non-hydrostatic Domains (DYAMOND) model, representations of La Niña and El Niño using the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) model, space weather from the Enlil model, and more.
NASA’s supercomputing infrastructure not only enables scientists to run their models at high enough fidelity to uncover the secrets of the Earth, the atmosphere, and the universe, but it also enables us to complete the scientific process by creating data visualizations that communicate this new knowledge to decision makers and the broad public.
Mark SubbaRao,
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Quick Facts
- Most of these visualizations rely on the infrastructure of the NASA Center for Climate Simulation’s Discover supercomputer. High-speed networking, large disk storage, and, of course, scientific data output from the supercomputer itself are all important. The SVS also renders imagery on older blades repurposed from Discover for an SVS rendering cluster.
- New visualization techniques allow visually probing enormous data files, like those generated by the DYAMOND global CO2 model. The SVS is now also able to decipher non-Cartesian grids and render them in cinematic quality, as seen in the visualization of the MAGE simulation.
- More productive conversations around SVS imagery are possible because they are showing the underlying data with more fidelity and clarity than ever before.
- SVS goals are to adapt as the research community evolves, to always be able to show their data both accurately and beautifully.
Researchers
- AJ Christensen, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Please enable Javascript to see email address.
- Mark SubbaRao, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Please enable Javascript to see email address.
