Interchanging Interactive 3-d Graphics for Astronomy (Fluke, Barnes & Jones)

Interchanging Interactive 3-d Graphics for Astronomy^* C.J. Fluke^A,B, D.G. Barnes^A and N.T. Jones^A ^ACentre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, Australia, 3122 ^BEmail: cfluke @ swin.edu.au
Abstract: We demonstrate how interactive, three-dimensional (3-d) scientific visualizations can be efficiently interchanged between a variety of mediums. Through the use of an appropriate interchange format, and a unified interaction interface, we minimize the effort to produce visualizations appropriate for undertaking knowledge discovery at the astronomer's desktop, as part of conference presentations, in digital publications or as Web content. We use examples from cosmological visualization to address some of the issues of interchange, and to describe our approach to adapting S2PLOT desktop visualizations to the Web.
Published as: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, 26(1), 37-47 [link1] [link2]
Support materials The following `s2web` applications demonstrate the capabilities presented in the paper. JavaScript must be enabled in your browser to run the `s2web` Flash application.
1.	6dF Galaxy Survey
2.	Halo merger tree from the Millennium Simulation
3.	Animation and density isosurfaces from a galaxy interaction simulation
4.	Volume rendering of a galaxy interaction simulation
* Research undertaken as part of the Commonwealth Cosmology Initiative (CCI: www.thecci.org), an international collaboration supported by the Australian Research Council (project number DP0665574).