Raymond L. Plante, Paul J. Rajlich, Steve Pietrowitz, Wei Xie, Asif Qamar, and Harold Ravlin (NCSA)
Reference URL: http://imagelib.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Horizon
This demonstration showcases NCSA Horizon and the VRML Server, two tools for collaborative astronomical research which integrate a number of diverse technologies currently under development at NCSA. The NCSA Horizon image data browser is a Java package for building Java applets that interact with 2D visualizations of multi-dimensional image data. We will show how a group of astronomers can use Horizon to explore scientific images in a collaborative session using NCSA Habanero, a Java-based collaborative environment. We will demonstrate the VRML Server with which users create, edit, and interact with 3D VRML visualizations of images from the NCSA Astronomy Digital Image Library (ADIL) over the Web. The editing capabilities are enhanced when the server used in conjunction with a Astro3D, a Java VRML viewer with specialized features for collaboration and interaction with astronomical data. This viewer was developed using the Java3D API and NCSA Portfolio, a Java class library for 3D visualization.