Northwestern University has created a video wall display that visualizes detailed scientific data using 25 JVC Professional Products Company GD-463D10U 46-inch 3D LCD HD monitors.
The 5x5 video wall, which can provide presentations for up to 35 people, is located in the lobby of Northwestern’s Silverman Hall for Molecular Therapeutics and Diagnostics, which was built for the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute and opened last year.
Tom Meade, professor and director of the Center for Advanced Molecular Imaging (CAMI) research facility within the institute, said the video wall is an integral part of the center’s mission to acquire, visualize, and interpret data from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), fluorescence and bioluminescence imaging, and other technologies within a single facility. The ability to display such large amounts of information (a technique known as volume rendering) in high detail allows scientists to observe and interpret data they would have never seen otherwise, Meade added.
Matt McCrory, Northwestern’s lead visualization engineer, said a projector-based system was not an option due to space restrictions, and the original plan to create a high-resolution tile display did not include 3D. However, after testing a single 3D display with volume rendering software, 3D was found to benefit CAMI’s advanced visualization efforts, according to McCrory.
The video wall displays close to 52 megapixels and is driven by a system of NVIDIA Quadro Plex graphics cards, which are powered by a cluster of Linux-based computers and managed through Equalizer middleware. With help from Northwestern University’s Academic and Research Technology Department, McCrory plans to develop a suite of iPad applications that will allow scientists and other presenters to easily adjust the data displayed on the JVC monitors.
“The JVC is a very bright, very vivid display. So far, they’ve been performing really well,” said McCrory. “It’s hard to even imagine there being a better monitor right now for this kind of application.”
-- Government Video
