Visualization

Campus-Wide Resources

Open to students, faculty, and staff from all schools and colleges, the UM3D Lab housed at the Duderstadt Center provides access to high-end technologies and professional expertise in the general areas of 3D simulation and visualization. It also offers resources for digital fabrication, motion capture, modeling, animation, and application development.

Visualization resources and services at the lab allow users to take a wide range of data and display it in a visually rich manner that allows for easier exploration and discovery. Some of the UM3D Lab’s resources include:

  • Tiled displays combine multiple monitors or projectors organized in a grid so that each device displays a small section of the total image. This allows for very high resolutions so that it is possible to focus on areas of detail but see context at the same time. The Lab has a 10-foot-wide display comprised of nine 46-inch panels.
  • The MIDEN (Michigan Immersive Digital Experience Nexus) is an advanced system for immersive virtual reality. It provides the convincing illusion of being fully immersed in a three-dimensional world that is computer-generated. This world is presented in stereo as well as at life-size scale.
  • The StereoWall display (formerly GeoWall) is a stereoscopic projection system that projects 3D data onto a single screen. The viewer wears 3D glasses, and objects seem to float directly in front of the viewer.
  • The Model & Animation Lab is a collection of 25 high powered graphics workstations, ideal for high-end computer graphics work or instruction that relies on cutting-edge technologies.
  • The render farm (a.k.a. the Render Garden) helps cut down on the time consuming task of converting 3d scenes or models into pixels on the screen by offloading the work to a 240-core clustered environment.
  • The 3D scanning services capture a physical 3D object, and the resulting data and image can then be sculpted, accurately measured, archived, or even duplicated.

Specialty Services

Medical Imaging

The UM Health System Department of Radiology also offers a 3D Imaging Laboratory that can provide clinically relevant visualization and analysis of medical imaging data (3D renderings of CT and MR images). On occasion they can support non-medical imaging.

Geospatial Data

SAND (Spatial and Numeric Data Services)  is a library unit offering support, computer labs (on Central and North Campus), workshops, and guides for working with geographic information system (GIS) data and visualizing that data.

The Center For Statistical Consultation and Research (CSCAR)  runs the Spatial Analysis and Visualization (SAVi) Lab, which offers workstations with large monitors and major GIS software packages; it is additionally supported by consulting, access to software, workshops for using GIS, and links to the UM GIS community and graduate certificate program in GIS.

Human-Body or Large-Object Surface Scanning

The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) Biosciences Group operates a laser-based surface coordinate measurement system able to scan the surface of an adult human in about 12 seconds.  The Vitus XXL scanner can record the surface geometry of most objects that can fit into its scan volume of 1.2-m diameter by 2-m in height.  Output is a polygon mesh of ~500k vertices with accuracy of 1-2 mm.  Various data processing options are available.  The system is available for research collaborations throughout the University.