Abstract | Introduction |Objectives| Collaboration

Attraction of the high-tech industry to Western North Carolina and technological support for existing firms requires the creation of a technology infrastructure. The EPA Visual Grid will support networking of numerous computer clusters spread across diverse locations to work together on large computational problems. UNC Asheville, UNC Charlotte and the Global Institute for Energy and Environmental Systems will connect using broadband and fiber optics to run visual simulations and models that address energy infrastructure, air quality, and environmental sustainability.  The resulting Visual Grid technology infrastructure will allow for economic development for Western North Carolina in the areas of visualizing disaster mitigation, environmental sustainability and security, natural resource valuation, and atmospheric science.

Start Date: June 2006
End Date: June 2007

Grid computing is a technology that uses numerous networked computers spread across diverse locations to work together on large computational problems. The technology currently being developed uses this environment so that the individual computer platforms become multi-use resources.

For both Western North Carolina (WNC) and the Charlotte region, expansion of the economy for job creation and infrastructure improvements requires the attraction and technological support for high-tech industries and provision of systems for environmental stewardship to reduce operational costs. In the light of current economic realities, there is a critical need for job creation through technology enhancement of existing firms and creation of technology infrastructure as support for new businesses. In order to develop new technology infrastructures and new research opportunities for WNC, the University of North Carolina (UNC) Asheville and UNC Charlotte propose to develop a unique high-performance computing resource, the Visualization Computing Grid (VisualGRID). A research test case utilizing atmospheric modeling, including satellite data, will illustrate how the VisualGRID can become an important and tangible delivery device of scientific data to audiences both within and outside the research community.

• Visualization test case retrieving real time satellite data transfer and processing the data to a format suitable for assimilation into air quality models,
  
• Upgrade NEMAC GRID infrastructure for applied research with fiber-optic cable network, Ethernet Connection from Visualization Workstation to UNCA supercomputer and data cashing,
  
• Attain Supercomputing system administration for the Visual Grid,
  
• Applied Vis 2006 Conference in Asheville focusing on how groups and experts in our area are applying multimedia and visualization to convey science to a wide audience and how this technology can be expanded to create economic development in North Carolina and fill a need nationally.

NEMAC at UNC Asheville and the Visualization Center at UNC Charlotte have an on-going research relationship. The centers have collaborated on a high performance-computing grant funded by the UNC Office of the President. Research in this area has focused on Visualization of Time-Dependent, 3D Atmospheric Data and Numerical Modeling of Atmospheric Data. In order to carry out this research partnership, a 16-node computer cluster was placed at UNC Asheville to run the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model http://wrf.atms.unca.edu/. On-going research between UNC Asheville and UNC Charlotte involves implementing the Ensemble Kalman Filter methodology for deriving wind analyses from single-station WSR88D radial velocity fields. The broader research initiative, Atmospheric Science Tools for Energy Conservation (ASTEC), will provide foundational atmospheric data for our proposed visualization test case described below.