NOTE: This document was generated from the 1995-1997 UIUC Programs of Study. Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, but be advised that requirements may have changed since this book was published. Errors may have also been introduced in the conversion to a WWW document. Thus for items of importance, it might be wise to seek confirmation from either the paper version or a live human being.
NSF placed the new national centers at major research universities to provide fertile ground for the multidisciplinary exchanges needed to create new fields in computational science. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign founded an Interdisciplinary Research Center (IRC) within NCSA to focus this process. IRC, located in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, is a scientific program built around a comprehensive, integrated computational network that facilitates frontier research and the sharing of knowledge across disciplines. The IRC supports a variety of intellectual programs involving national visitors; staff research scientists; UIUC adjunct faculty; postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students; computer scientists; and computer professionals.
NCSA does not directly fund research projects, but provides the environment in which they can be carried out effectively. The center is a training ground for graduate students working on IRC-affiliated projects. Training includes the use of supercomputers, workstations, and productivity software for research purposes. In addition, NCSA sponsors many educational activities, such as seminars and technology demonstrations, which are open to the entire University community.
NCSA's plan for meeting the computational requirements of its users is constantly re-evaluated in response to advances in technology as well as changes in federal funding policy. NCSA is phasing out traditional vector processing platforms and moving to scalable, shared memory platforms constructed from microprocessors. Scalable computers are modular, upgradeable, and binary compatible from desktop to supercomputer, making them a flexible alternative to traditional architectures. NCSA is deploying new scalable machines from leading computer corporations. Allocations on the NCSA systems are awarded by peer review. Graduate students can gain access through their advisers or through a group that has been allocated time on a system.
NCSA's visualization program, a major research and development effort at the center, adopts new technologies and develops new techniques to serve computational science. Virtual reality (VR), the latest step in visualization technology, surrounds the user with a synthetic environment that emulates reality. NCSA's VR Laboratory provides a resource where researchers can explore their data while experimenting with the latest equipment. The newest addition to NCSA's VR Laboratory is the CAVE, a collaborative project between NCSA and the University of Illinois at Chicago's Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL). In the CAVE, a virtual environment is displayed on multiple walls of a room using rear-projection monitors.
Software packages are supported at NCSA for most branches of science and engineering. In addition, the NCSA Software Development Group develops software tools for computational scientists and turns prototypes into products. Its highly successful communications package, NCSA Telnet, and its Internet browser, NCSA Mosiac (TM), are used worldwide.
To learn more about the programs, services, and facilities at the center, please call (217) 244-0072.
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