A state-of-the-art 'Laboratory of Excellence for Realtime Computing and Multiscale Modeling' was completed at the College of Engineering Research Complex and an open house was held on April 20, 2007. Dr. Li presented the new lab capabilities and an overview of research activities in the area of groundwater hydrology and modeling. Dr. Mantha presented research in surface water hydrodynamics and modeling.

Dr. Li introducing the lab to the visitors

The highlight of the lab is a 13 ft by 6 ft high definition videowall system located at the southern end of the room. The videowall system includes:

• An array of six DLP rear-projection cubes each with a resolution of 1280 by 1024
• A video processor that turns the total array into a single virtual screen
• Recording & Playback Equipment (2 VCRs and 2 DVDs)
• Wireless keyboard and mouse operation
• Discrete Sound System
• Touch Panel Control System
• Remote Access and Control Software

The videowall can simultaneously displays running video, computer generated video, browser windows and network applications in movable, scalable windows. Images can be placed anywhere on the virtual palette without concern that they line up with any individual display cube or panel. The videowall is a great tool for team-based realtime modeling and visualization, and for stochastic modeling, and GIS-based modeling across vast scales.

On the west wall of the lab are two projector screens which provide conventional presentation options. On the northern wall, there are two 46" plasma flat displays. In the mid area of the lab is a technology conference center, which provides a comfortable, professional atmosphere for 14 people. The conference center is full wired and equipped with a document camera and communication ports for audio, video, Internet, phone, and power supply capabilities.

There is a computing area with eight modern workstations integrated into a FlipIT smart computer desk system in the northern section of the lab. Each of the workstations has up to 8 processors. The workstation arrays, plus the videowall computer system, and four additional laptop connections in the central table, can be used as a parallel computing cluster for large-scale, stochastic modeling and visualization.

Any workstation or laptop can be connected to any number of display units in the lab through a touch panel. This flexibility of visual displays is highly useful for interactive learning and research.

The lab can be divided into two separate rooms with a sound proof accordion wall.

Lab views: Looking north (left) and looking south (right).
ENE faculty members take a closer look at the lab on a quieter day