EE Times: Latest News
George Leopold  
EE Times
(12/03/2007 9:00 AM EST) 

Norrköping, Sweden - Planners in this university town and elsewhere in Sweden are betting big that visualization technology is poised to enter the mainstream for scientific, medical and a range of other applications.

The Swedish government, along with Linköping University here and government-backed groups such as the Stockholm-based Knowledge Foundation, are busy developing the infrastructure needed to make the Scandinavian country a global leader in visualisation development. The Norrköping Science Park, which has close ties to Linköping University, has helped create demonstration projects developed by the Norrköping Visualization and Interaction Studio, housed on the university campus. Researchers here divide visualization content into scientific, information and geospatial and computer graphics/virtual reality categories.

According to the technology's promoters, visualization is primarily about using growing computing power to harness huge amounts of data. "Visualization is all about incorporating such solutions as 3-D models and virtual reality [to] create easy-to-understand interpretations and simulations of complex and often large quantities of data," the science park's prospectus explains.

The university and the studio are preparing to break ground early next year on a new facility that will serve as the focal point for Sweden's visualization initiative. It will also house a next-generation visualization center, according to Anders Ynnerman, professor of scientific visualization at Linköping University and director of the virtualization studio.

Ynnerman said students working at the studio are developing new visualization algorithms while he and other managers seek partners for applied research projects. A product unit has been established as a way to reach out to potential end users of visualization technology. Computer graphics and special effects are two early candidates.

Among the most compelling virtualization projects under way here are an interactive tour of the universe, dubbed Kosmos, and virtual autopsies that in at least one case helped solve a medical mystery stemming from an accidental police shooting. The virtual space trip was developed in collaboration with New York's Hayden Planetarium and the American Museum of Natural History, along with Stockholm-based SCISS (Smart Content for Interactive Systems) AB, a supplier of visualization tools. Developers in Sweden are also working with other U.S. planetariums and museums to disseminate the technology and make it a teaching tool.

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