2008 eRSA / SAPAC News

Video-conference Room, and Access Grid node QA : April 18th, 2008

The PC in the Access Grid Meeting Room has been upgraded, and both Access Grid 3.1 and EVO are working well under Windows.
Following the successful hardware upgrade, the Room has passed a Quality Assurance Test as an AG node.
It has also been used very successfully in a number of regular EVO meetings, including some with overseas participants.
See here for a list of AG nodes.

eRSA / SAPAC farewells Craig Hill : February 8th, 2008

Our Business Manager for the last three years, Craig Hill, has left eRSA / SAPAC, and has taken a position at UniSA.
For those occasions where Craig would have been the point of contact at eRSA / SAPAC, please contact Associate Director
Dr. Heath James
(ph. +61 8 8303 8352 email heath.james@sapac.edu.au)

Changes to staffing : January 15th, 2008

There have been some recent changes to eRSA / SAPAC staff.
Professor Tony Williams has accepted the full-time position of Executive Director of ARCS (Australian Research Collaboration Service), and has therefore stepped down from his previous position as SAPAC's Director.
Dr. Paul Coddington is now SAPAC's Interim Director, and will serve in this capacity until a new Director has been appointed.
Dr. Heath James fills the role of Associate Director.

Patrick Fitzhenry retruns to his role in User Support; Sam Moskwa is back in his office; and Julian Schwerdt has left to pursue a PhD, but will work at SAPAC/eRSA on occasion.

Further to this, SAPAC is in the process of transformation into eResearch SA (eRSA), a process which, for its users and members, will be largely if not entirely transparent.

2007 Archive

Changes to Booking Forms : December 10th, 2007

The previous single booking form has been split into two separate forms as follows:
Access Grid Booking Form for Access Grid use
Facilities Booking Form for other meeting/visualisation/haptics facilities.

EVO video-conference application now in use : December 6th, 2007

SAPAC is pleased to announce the availibility of EVO in its Access Grid Meeting Room. At present (17/12/07), EVO is available for groups only in the Meeting Room.
At present (17/12/07), bookings for using EVO in the Access Grid Meeting Room should be made via the Access Grid Booking Form stipulating in the "General details" field that EVO is to be used, and giving the virtual meeting room in the "Virtual venue" field and other known participating sites in the appropriate field.
EVO is a browser-based video-conference application, and is well suited to one-on-one meetings, as well as group meetings. The basic installation includes a whiteboard application.

SAPAC contribution to AGSA exhibition : November 9th, 2007

SAPAC has prepared a number of stereoscopic still images for display in the Art Gallery of South Australia's exhibition, A Century in Focus.
AGSA staff digitised a selection of antique stereo cards from its collection, and SAPAC processed these into anaglyph images, suitable for display on LCD monitors during the exhibition.
For more details, see the relevant Case Study page.

Visit by HRH Duke of Kent : October 3rd, 2007

SAPAC staff entertained the Duke of Kent in the VisLab, as part of his visit to the School of Chemistry and Physics at the University of Adelaide.
Prior to unveiling a newly-cast bust of Sir William Lawrence Bragg, the Duke and other dignitaries were shown a condensed version of our presentation on the Braggs which was developed for public viewing in 2005.
This presentation involves stereo computer-generated animations pertaining to X-ray crystallography, as well as historic stereo still image pairs of crystal models made for the Braggs; these models are kept at the Royal Institution in London.

OzViz_07 concludes successfully : September 28th 2007

OzViz, the annual meeting for visualisation practitioners, was hosted this year by SAPAC- the first time the workshop has been held in South Australia.
Participants were treated to a varied programme of talks, ranging from visualisations of subatomic physics concepts and circle-packing algorithms, to industry insiders' insights into visual effects for movies and obtaining high-quality stereo imagery, as well as recent developments in incorporating 3D and stereo elements into dance/music/visuals performance.
Unofficially, the workshop was closed by Paul Bourker's demonstration of high-definition dome projection at the University of South Australia's Planeterium at its Mawson Lakes campus, where the mix of the day's good lunch, spacey visuals, a darkened room and reclining chairs proved an almost too-relaxing combination to resist...

High-definition stereo video: September 2007

SAPAC is developing a high-definition stereo video capability, as the result of its purchase of a Canon XH-G1 video camera.
In assosociation with a second such camera obtained by SABRENet, each organisation now has access to a pair of the HD cameras when required. SABRENet's main interest is in two-way, high-definition video broadcast over its firbre-optic network. SAPAC's main interest is in developing the techniques and methods of HD stereo video, having tested the basics with a pair of standard-definition mini-DV cameras.
Some initial work has already been done using the new cameras, in collaboration with the research being done by "Company Of" into incorporating stereo 3D techniques in dance/music/visuals performance.

Corvus (and Orion) moved: September 1st 2007

SAPAC's latest supercomputer, Corvus, and its more-mature stablemate, Orion, have been moved to their new home.
A new machine room in the Badger building has been completed, and following a smooth relocation process, work is currently underway on getting the systems up-and-running again.
An image gallery is under development, and includes a number of red-cyan anaglyph stereo pairs.

Anaglyph Image Galleries: July 3rd 2007

Stereo still images taken with SAPAC's stereo imaging rig have been converted to red-cyan anaglyph images, and placed in some on-line galleries. If you wish to make use of any of these images, please ask for permission and make due acknowledgement of the source of the images.

VRVS Support : May 22nd 2007

As a result of the successful hosting by SAPAC and CSSM of the ILDG10 VRVS-based teleconference, it is announced that SAPAC can provide local support for VRVS-based events.
Due to the relatively low usage of VRVS in Australia (as compared with Access Grid), it is strongly suggested that potential users should make contact and arrangements as early as possible.

SAPAC to host OzViz 07 : May 1st 2007

In September, SAPAC will host this year's OzViz conference, the annual meeting for visualisation practitioners in Australia. See here for this year's offical website; and here for the website for last year's event.

SAPAC acquires 6 Teraflop cluster, "Corvus", and other cyber-infrastructure : January 10th, 2007

South Australia's ability to support local and national advanced research and development has taken a major leap forward with the purchase from SGI of a new high-performance supercomputer and data storage and management infrastructure by the South Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (SAPAC).
In the tradition of naming cluster-based supercomputers after stellar constellations, the new South Australian computer will be called "Corvus", the constellation of the Crow.
The full announcement is here.

SAPAC implements the South Australian Sustainable Repository (SASR) : January 2007

The South Australian Sustainable Repository (SASR) is a managed, distributed, mass research data storage facility primarily intended to service the South Australian research and development (R&D) community.
Although presenting as a single, unified system, SASR has been implemented initially as three physical nodes located at the three South Australian Universities.
These will operate as gateways for researchers from the respective Universities to access transparently SAPAC's broad range of e-Research resources and, specifically, SAPAC-managed research data storage and related services.
SASR can be expanded easily to include other R&D groups, from government and industry, by adding nodes and data storage capacity.
SASR complements existing and planned individual institutional and discipline-based digital repositories and is an exciting new service for the South Australian research community.
A brief description of SASR is here.
A SASR user guide and other information will be added to this site soon.

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