9422038 Rice This award is to purchase ATM network equipment and a high performance visualization machine to support five research projects. Four projects need to pre- and post-process massive data sets on a supercomputer; this requires high performance for both visualization graphics capabilities and networking. The fifth project needs the network for its studies in high performance interactive simulation with networks of heterogeneous computers. The network will connect the 140-processor Paragon in the Computing Center with research laboratories in the Computer Science Department; it will also interconnect various machines in these laboratories. The high performance graphics machine will allow effective visualization in the laboratory of massive data sets (3D to 5D with hundreds of megabytes) arising from 1) partial differential equations (5D data sets are generated by functions defined on 3 space dimensions and time), 2) geometry modeling and imaging in medical, geophysical and design applications, and 3) macromolecular structure analysis for viruses and proteins. The graphics machine will be shared with the heterogeneous network project. ***
