IDIA and the Department of Astronomy at the University of Cape Town (UCT) are proud to announce the first public release of the innovative iDaVIE software by the IDIA Vislab. This milestone marks a significant advancement in astronomy data visualisation and analysis, offering researchers a powerful tool to enhance their work using Virtual Reality.
Link to online documentation:
iDaVIE is designed to facilitate the visualisation and interrogation of complex astronomical and multidisciplinary datasets, exploiting the unique capabilities of Virtual Reality.
Contact
Dr Lucia Marchetti
Senior Lecturer, UCT Department of Astronomy
Director of the IDIA Vislab, UCT
Senior Lecturer, UCT Department of Astronomy
Director of the IDIA Vislab, UCT
Email: lucia.marchetti@uct.ac.za
Phone: +27 0713905116
iDaVIE, which stands for immersive Data Visualisation Interactive Explorer, has been developed by the IDIA Vislab in collaboration with the Astrophysical Observatory of Catania of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF-OACT). It is designed to facilitate the visualisation and interrogation of complex astronomical and multidisciplinary datasets, exploiting the unique capabilities of Virtual Reality. The software is particularly beneficial for the astronomy community, enabling the analysis in unprecedented detail of 3D data cubes and catalogues like those produced by MeerKAT and, eventually, the SKA.
Key Features of iDaVIE include:
- Interactive and Immersive Visualisation: Allows users to use easily accessible commercial VR headsets to immerse themselves in the data and interact with the data in real-time, providing amore intuitive understanding of complex datasets.
- Scalability: Capable of handling different types of data input, making it suitable for a wide range of scientific research beyond astronomy, e.g. engineering and medical/biology research (see some multi-disciplinary examples reported here).
- Open Source: The release of the source code encourages collaboration and further development by the global research community.
Dr Lucia Marchetti, Director of the IDIA Vislab, expressed her excitement about the release: "We are thrilled to make iDaVIE available to the public. This software represents years of hard work, and we believe it will be a valuable resource for researchers around the world as already proven by the many publications that have used iDaVIE while still under development."
Prof Patrick Woudt, Interim Director of IDIA, adds: “iDaVIE aligns with IDIA’s commitment to advancing Data-intensive Research and fostering innovation in South Africa. We are very happy to release this to the community and we look forward to the next developments that will follow. ”
By making the software and its source code freely available, UCT and the IDIA Vislab aim to support the global research community and encourage the development of new tools and techniques in data visualisation, while hoping to foster new global collaborations in this field.
As a final remark, Dr Lucia Marchetti also shares a message honouring her predecessor and IDIA Vislab founding director, Prof Tom Jarrett, who suddenly passed away in July: “The entire IDIA Vislab team and I would like to dedicate this first public release to our late director, mentor and friend Tom, who sadly passed away too soon, before this important milestone that he initiated and to which he contributed for many years. He would have cherished this release with us today”.
For more information about iDaVIE and to access the software and source code, please visit the iDaVIE documention online (link below).
Key Features of iDaVIE include:
- Interactive and Immersive Visualisation: Allows users to use easily accessible commercial VR headsets to immerse themselves in the data and interact with the data in real-time, providing amore intuitive understanding of complex datasets.
- Scalability: Capable of handling different types of data input, making it suitable for a wide range of scientific research beyond astronomy, e.g. engineering and medical/biology research (see some multi-disciplinary examples reported here).
- Open Source: The release of the source code encourages collaboration and further development by the global research community.
Dr Lucia Marchetti, Director of the IDIA Vislab, expressed her excitement about the release: "We are thrilled to make iDaVIE available to the public. This software represents years of hard work, and we believe it will be a valuable resource for researchers around the world as already proven by the many publications that have used iDaVIE while still under development."
Prof Patrick Woudt, Interim Director of IDIA, adds: “iDaVIE aligns with IDIA’s commitment to advancing Data-intensive Research and fostering innovation in South Africa. We are very happy to release this to the community and we look forward to the next developments that will follow. ”
By making the software and its source code freely available, UCT and the IDIA Vislab aim to support the global research community and encourage the development of new tools and techniques in data visualisation, while hoping to foster new global collaborations in this field.
As a final remark, Dr Lucia Marchetti also shares a message honouring her predecessor and IDIA Vislab founding director, Prof Tom Jarrett, who suddenly passed away in July: “The entire IDIA Vislab team and I would like to dedicate this first public release to our late director, mentor and friend Tom, who sadly passed away too soon, before this important milestone that he initiated and to which he contributed for many years. He would have cherished this release with us today”.
For more information about iDaVIE and to access the software and source code, please visit the iDaVIE documention online (link below).
Link to online documentation:
Example images
3D Rendering of Dark Cloud Chain
3D rendering using IPYVOLUME of the neutral hydrogen gas distribution of the Dark Cloud Chain. The data source is the MeerKAT radio inteferometer. Click on the graphic to interact with the volume.
3D Rendering of Dark Cloud Chain, larger area
Larger region showing the 3D rendering of the neutral gas distribution of the cloud and nearby sources. Click on graphic to interact with the volume (25 Mb).
Dark Cloud Chain as seen in the neutral hydrogen (left) and deep optical imaging (right). No evidence of a "host" galaxy is seen at the central position of the massive cloud.
The most massive hydrogen-cloud -- with a negligible amount of associated stars -- discovered to date, found with the MeerKAT Habitat of Galaxies Survey (MeerHOGS), an initiative to exploit the sensitivity and 1-degree field of view of the MeerKAT SKA Precursor to map local large scale structures of the Cosmic Web. This 3D rendered video shows the cloud chain (at center) and its immediate surroundings. It starts with the spatial (X-Y) plane, rotating to view the velocity (Z-dimension) plane which shows the kinematic action of the gas. Typically a "cloud" will have a disk shape with rotation, but in the case of the "dark cloud", there is little if any rotation, and is spread out along the spatial axis in a chain of dense concentrations. The central concentration is large enough to be its own galaxy, yet it contains no stars or activity of recent star formation. Read more about it in Józsa et al. 2021
