14 DAY TRIAL // NASA unveiled last week the world's highest resolution visualization system, dubbed Hyperwall-2, an event that took place at the Ames Research Center. The new system isn't meant for commercial use and will serve the scientists over at NASA who need to study small details and specs featured in the very large datasets produced by the agency's supercomputers.
The system has been developed by scientists and engineers in the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division at Ames and it counts no less than 128-screens, being capable of rendering one quarter billion pixel graphics. The new tool will allow scientists to easily analyze and explore datasets, which would have otherwise taken them many years to do. The 23-foot-wide and 10-foot tall LCD wall will be used to view, analyze and communicate results from several NASA projects.
"The hyperwall-2 offers a supercomputer-scale environment that is truly up to the task of visualization and exploration of the very large datasets routinely produced by NASA supercomputers and instruments," said Bryan Biegel, NAS deputy chief. "The system also will be used to get highly detailed information on how NAS supercomputers are operating, enabling staff to quickly and precisely diagnose problems or inefficiencies with the supercomputers or the software running on them."
This large display is powered by a system made of 128 graphics processing units and 1024 processor cores. This will be enough to ensure no less than 74 TeraFlops of peak processing power. The system will also deal with a high data storage capacity of 475 terabytes.
As compared to the first 49-screen hyperwall, which was developed in 2002, the new tool provides more than 100 times the processing power and will be integrated with the NAS visualization team.
"We are proud to continue partnering with NAS as it offers advanced, innovative solutions for high-performance computing," said Gautam Shah, chief executive officer, Colfax International. "As NASA Ames successfully responds to support the visualization and data analysis needs of researchers to maximize the understanding of scientific results, Colfax International is pleased to be part of the hyperwall-2 visualization cluster project," Shah added.