Image of the Week - 27 January 2004

MAEViz

The primary objective of this project is to develop an interactive visualization tool for earthquake risk assessment across regions using advanced information technologies. Toward this end the MAEviz researchers plan to incorporate advanced techniques and tools with visualization tools for predicting consequences related to various problem definitions and mitigation scenarios. They are developing MAEViz to display in the Beckman Institute CUBE environment as well as the desktop. This environment will also integrate the results of other MAE Center projects in the thrust areas of damage synthesis, consequence minimization, and hazard definition. A substantial part of this project will be employing advanced visualization techniques to describe earthquake scenarios.
The Automated Learning Group (ALG) has developed an environment for building data mining applications called D2K - Data to Knowledge. The ALG has used this software with great success on many of the projects they work on in the group. For the MAE Center project they are using D2K as the framework for building the interactive visualization tool called MAEViz. D2K will also serve as the means for incorporating the many projects associated with the MAE Center as well as the results of other related projects. The Visualization Tool Kit (VTK) is used to support 3-D graphics capabilities.
The effort will also involve the development of software for visualizing complex information about future earthquake consequences. It is hoped that this tool will be highly beneficial to experts in the field, policy makers and decision makers.
Braden Kowitz uses the DVD and Digital Media authoring systems in the ITG to produce an series of animations and overviews of the MAEviz project.

Image Courtesy: Chris Navarro, Loretta Auvil, Braden Kowitz, Tom Prudhomme - NCSA: Amr Elnashai, Dan Abrams - Civil Engineering; Hank Kaczmarski, Ben Schaeffer - BI

Contact: lauvil@ncsa.uiuc.edu, cnavarro@ncsa.uiuc.edu, kowitz@uiuc.edu