Web-based 3D Visualization

Overview

Abstract

In this seminar I will present how to create 3D computer graphics and visualization systems for the web, using WebAssmbly and WebGPU language specifications, which are new, bleeding-edge technologies. Previously, accelerated graphics on the web was based on JavaScript libraries, which is still very popular, but they do not offer detailed memory management and code optimization, necessary for systems requiring high memory load and high computational demands. WebAssembly and WebGPU can be compiled from the C++ or Rust code, which also allows the deployment of the same codebase either for web or for the desktop-based applications. I will demonstrate development of a simple 3D graphics application, show a system for coding WebGPU fragment shaders (https://shadereditor.kaust.edu.sa/), volume rendering application with a 3D UNet compute shader (https://www.nanovis.org/nano-oetzi-webgpu/), or a 3D modeling tool (https://www.nanovis.org/MesoCraft.html).

Brief Biography

Ivan Viola is a Professor and Chair of Computer Science. Viola investigates methods that automate the visualization design process and scalable visualization techniques. He has applied basal new technologies to various application domains, such as ultrasound diagnostics, geology, and has recently put an exclusive focus on visualization for sub-micron biology - nanovisualization. Rapid 3D modeling of cellular mesoscale models, automated visual guided tours through such models, scalable interactive visualization of models with trillions of particles, and visualization of cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET), are among the topics Viola and his team have contributed to the field of visual computing. 
Viola graduated from TU Wien, Austria, in 2005 and moved to the University of Bergen, Norway, for a postdoctoral fellowship where he was gradually promoted to the rank of Professor. In 2013, he was awarded a Vienna Science and Technology Fund grant to establish his own research group back at TU Wien, Austria. After several years of research on nanovisualization, Viola co-founded an Austrian startup company called Nanographics, to commercialize prior research outcome. Viola has relocated to KAUST to join his investigative efforts in nanovisualization with strong competencies in visual computing at the Visual Computing Center and computational biology at the Computational Bioscience Research Center.