Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute
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Established | 1994 |
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Research type | Computer science and translational research |
Field of research | Scientific visualization, High performance computing, Image analysis |
Director | Chris Johnson |
Location | Salt Lake City, Utah |
Affiliations | University of Utah School of Computing University of Utah School of Medicine University of Utah College of Engineering |
Operating agency | University of Utah |
Website | www.sci.utah.edu |
The Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute is one of eight permanent research institutes at the University of Utah. Faculty are associated primarily with the School of Computing, Department of Bioengineering, Department of Mathematics, and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Research focuses include the development of new scientific computing techniques, tools, and systems with applications to various fields, including high performance computing, scientific visualization, image analysis, computational biology, data science, and graphics.[1]
History
The Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute started in 1992 as a research group in the University of Utah School of Computing by Chris Johnson and Rob MacLeod. In 1994 this group became the Center for Scientific Computing and Imaging, and in 2000 the name was changed to the Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute. In 2007, the SCI Institute was awarded funding from USTAR to recruit more faculty in medical imaging technology. The SCI Institute was recognized as an NVIDIA CUDA Center of Excellence in 2008.[2] In 2011, USTAR funding allowed faculty recruitment for genomic signal processing and information visualization. in 2014, Intel partnered with the SCI Institute to form the Intel Parallel Computing Center for Scientific Rendering to research and develop large scale and in situ visualization techniques for Intel hardware.[3]
Research
The overarching research objective of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute is to conduct application-driven research in the creation of new scientific computing techniques, tools, and systems. Given the proximity and availability of research conducted at the University of Utah School of Medicine, a main application focus is medicine. SCI Institute researchers also apply computational techniques to scientific and engineering sub-specialties, such as fluid dynamics, biomechanics, electrophysiology, bioelectric fields, scientific visualization, parallel computing, inverse problems, and neuroimaging.
Open source software releases

The SCI Institute releases open source software packages for many of the projects developed by researchers for use by the scientific visualization and medical imaging communities. All projects are released under the MIT software license. Notable projects released by SCI include:
- SCIRun - Problem Solving Environment (PSE), for modeling, simulation and visualization of scientific problems
- ImageVis3D - volume rendering application with multidimensional transfer function visualization support
- Seg3D - interactive image segmentation tool
- ViSUS - Visualization Streams for Ultimate Scalability
- ShapeWorks - statistical shape analysis tool that constructs compact statistical point-based models of ensembles of similar shapes that does not rely on any specific surface parameterization
- FluoRender - interactive rendering tool for confocal microscopy data visualization.
- VisTrails - scientific workflow management system.
- Cleaver - multi-material tetrahedral meshing API and application
- FEBio - nonlinear finite element solver specifically designed for biomechanical applications
- VISPACK - C++ library that includes matrix, image, and volume objects
- Teem - collection of libraries for representing, processing, and visualizing scientific raster data
- Manta Interactive Ray Tracer - interactive ray tracing environment designed for both workstations and supercomputers
Notable researchers
- Juliana Freire - co-developed VisTrails
- Charles D. Hansen - co-editor of The Visualization Handbook
- Gordon Kindlmann - developed tensor glyphs
- Theresa-Marie Rhyne - founding director of the SIGGRAPH Cartographic Visualization Project and the Environmental Protection Agency Scientific Visualization Center
- Claudio Silva - chair of IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Visualization and Graphics, co-developed VisTrails
External links
References
- ^ "Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute – Home". Retrieved 16 April 2013.
- ^ Humber, Andrew (31 July 2008). "NVIDIA Recognizes University Of Utah As A Cuda Center Of Excellence". NVIDIA. Retrieved 8 April 2017.
- ^ "Intel® Parallel Computing Center at SCI Institute, University of Utah | Intel® Software". Intel Developer Zone. 16 September 2014. Retrieved 8 April 2017.