1 / 18

Gavin W. Burris Senior Visualization Research Programmer

Gavin W. Burris Senior Visualization Research Programmer Penn State Information Technology Services Academic Services and Emerging Technologies Graduate Education and Research Services Visualization Group ga5in@psu.edu.

vlad
Download Presentation

Gavin W. Burris Senior Visualization Research Programmer

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Gavin W. Burris Senior Visualization Research Programmer Penn State Information Technology Services Academic Services and Emerging Technologies Graduate Education and Research Services Visualization Group ga5in@psu.edu Experiences with the Access Grid:a tool for group conferencing for the Computational Grid and beyond

  2. The Access Grid (AG) consists of multimedia display, presentation and interactive environments, interfaces to grid middleware, and interfaces to visualization environments, to support large-scale distributed meetings, collaborative work sessions, seminars, lectures, tutorials and training. - http://www.accessgrid.org Access Grid

  3. What is Access Grid? • Facilitates group-to-group interaction • AG nodes are “designed spaces” • Distributed data and visualization corridors • Provides persistent electronic spaces • The next killer app?

  4. Origins of Access Grid • Grew out of the Computational Grid • Funded by the National Science Foundation's Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) • An initiative of the National Computational Science Alliance (Alliance) • Argonne National Laboratory, Future Laboratory • National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)

  5. An Enabling Technology • Breakdown of time and space • Reduced travel cost: time, money & stress • Access to high-quality expert speakers and content • High-resolution audio/video/desktop sharing • video H261(352x288) 25fps 800kbps • audio L16-16k-Mono 256kbps • desktop TightVNC 500-3000kbps • Open development community • Access to a growing creative community • currently over 150 nodes

  6. http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/fl/accessgrid/nodes.htm Available Nodes

  7. Required Resources • Multicast networking • 100bT for node hardware • at least T3 or DS3 bandwidth to the Internet • Physical space • adequate seating, acoustics, lighting, accessibility • Staffing • Windows, Linux, A/V systems administrator • senior networking technician • non-technical scheduling/maintenance of room • technical node operator • Equipment costs ~ $25,000-$50,000+ • Software mostly free

  8. Node Setup • Put up a multicast beacon • Support persistent multicast • Plan room • Order equipment • Assemble equipment • Install software • Testing, debugging and outreach

  9. 2x telephone lines power conditioning device echo cancellation device keyboard/video/mouse switch tables, chairs, lighting, wall/ceiling mounts Equipment List • 3x cameras • 3x projectors • display wall / projection screen • 4x computer workstations w/ cards • 2x audio speakers • 4x microphones • level balancing device

  10. Vendors • Imprint Systems, Inc. • Dell • Gentner • Sony • Matrox • Hauppauge • Rartin • Stewart Filmscreen • InFocus / Proxima • Genelec • Shure • Crown • 80/20

  11. Room Design • images from NCSA Access Grid Tutorial

  12. A Compelling User Experience • Audio seems to be the most crucial factor • Arranging equipment in a non-obtrusive manner adds to the almost transparent nature of interaction during a well planned AG session • Video is clear enough that natural communication takes place, even body language and normal face-to-face meeting etiquette • Distributed PowerPoint, desktops, OpenGL and MPEG video offer rich content

  13. BU Access Grid user seminar series HPC & VIZ seminars NDSU 2nd Virtual Conference in Genomics & Bioinformatics Alliance panelist meetings AG Sessions

  14. http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/fl/accessgrid/schedule.htm Scheduled Events

  15. Precipitation of Activity • After initial testing and debugging, our AG node was ready for general use • Once a node is listed as a functional and some outreach/publicity is done, users most often find the node and ask to schedule • The nature of the content on Access Grid is such that it precipitates interest and collaboration within the your research community

  16. Things to Come in AG 2.0 • The current release of the Access Grid Toolkit is 1.0 for Linux and 1.2 for Windows • AG 2.0 is a move to formalize the lessons learned from the AG 1.X software • Globus authentication • Dynamic object oriented spaces • Transcoding for multi-modal participants, like speech-to-text and resampling of data streams

  17. Acknowledgments • Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory • Boston University • Argonne • NCSA • ACM SIGGRAPH • SC 2002 • ACM SIGUCCS

  18. Further Information • NCSA Access Grid Training Project Tutorials • http://webct.ncsa.uiuc.edu:8900/public/AGIB/ • Access Grid Documentation Project • http://www.accessgrid.org/agdp/ • Information Technology Services @ Penn State • http://its.psu.edu/ • Penn State Visualization Group • http://gears.aset.psu.edu/viz/ • vizgroup@psu.edu

More Related