Meshing, Visualization, and Computational Environments
Technical Committee

  21 May 2005

TC News: May 2003 - April 2004

10 April 2004

Reno CFP
The TC's CFP for the 43rd Aerospace Science Meeting has now appeared in Aerospace America and a glossy mailer from AIAA. In case you missed it:

The Meshing, Visualization, and Computational Environments TC, formerly known as the Interactive Computer Graphics TC, invites papers describing those tools and techniques that enable successful application of computational simulations such as CFD, CAA, and CEM for real problems. Specifically, papers that describe advanced techniques and extreme applications are invited in the following areas:

  • Computational geometry, including CAD-CAE interoperability
  • Meshing, including surface and volume grids, grid adaption, and moving meshes
  • Post processing, including multi-dimensional and transient visualization, feature detection, knowledge capture, and engineering animation
  • Collaborative environments, including user interfaces, internet technology, virtual reality, and linkages to design optimization and advanced engineering environments

Authors are also encouraged to submit their manuscripts, either before or after the meeting, to the Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication for publication.

ABSTRACTS ARE DUE ON MAY 7TH

As you probably recall, John Dannenhoffer is our TC's technical chair for Reno. Also, about a month ago, we issued a call for volunteers to help on the Conferences sub-committee. Volunteers to date include: John Chawner, Steve Karman, and Theresa Benyo. MORE VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED. Please help.

TC Meeting in Portland?
The 34th AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference and Exhibit will be held this summer on 28 June through 01 July in Portland, Oregon in conjunction with 4 other conferences.

The TC has no events currently planned for Portland.

Please reply if you would like the TC to meet at this conference. If there are enough "yes" votes, I'll request a meeting room from AIAA. No reply will indicate that you're not interested in meeting in Portland.

Deadline for these votes is 30 April.

TC's Web Site Membership Page
As discussed during February's telecon, the Membership page on the TC's web site is undergoing renovation. Why?
  • Listing everyone's interests in the TC can serve to attract new, active members.
  • Listing everyone's affiliation gives credit to the organization that's sponsoring your membership in the TC.
  • Our web site is way too dull and a few pictures will help spice it up.

As you can see from the web page, each member's listing includes:

  • name
  • affiliation, and link to that web site
  • a photo
  • a brief write-up of your interests as they relate to the TC
  • an image that exemplifies those interests

Therefore, consider this a solicitation for your information. Let me know if the URL currently listed next to your name is accurate or whether your department or group has a web site that you'd rather link to. There are no precise specifications on image size or format but don't be surprised if I resize your image to fit.

2004 YIR
Just a reminder that topics for the TC's 2004 Year In Review article should be emailed to John Chawner, jrc@pointwise.com.

14 March 2004 - Call for Volunteers

As you may recall from our last TC meeting, we are establishing a Conferences sub-committee, which will be primarily responsible for the management of technical sessions at various AIAA meetings. We currently have 4 sessions planned for 2005: two at the Aerospace Sciences Meeting (January in Reno) and two at the CFD Meeting (June).

Now is the time to volunteer to be a member of this sub-committee. As a member, you will be involved in reviewing paper submissions and possibly chairing one of our sessions. You may also need to "beat-the-drum" to ensure that we get sufficient, high quality submissions.

If you are interested in joining this sub-committe, please contact John Chawner (jrc@pointwise.com) or John Dannenhoffer (jfdannen@ecs.syr.edu). Our first task is reviewing next year's Reno submission in May/June, so please do not delay.

Conference and Other Post-Telecon News

  • John Dannenhoffer has agreed to lead our Conferences sub-committee and be our liaison to the Fluids TC.
  • 2005 Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Call for Papers
    • The Meshing, Visualization, and Computational Environments TC, formerly known as the Interactive Computer Graphics TC, invites papers describing those tools and techniques that enable successful application of computational simulations such as CFD, CAA, and CEM for real problems. Specifically, papers that describe advanced techniques and extreme applications are invited in the following areas:
      • Computational geometry, including CAD-CAE interoperability
      • Meshing, including surface and volume grids, grid adaptation, and moving meshes
      • Post processing, including multi-dimensional and transient visualization, feature detection, knowledge capture, and engineering animation
      • Collaborative environments, including user interfaces, internet technology, virtual reality, and linkages to design optimization and advanced engineering environments.
      Authors are also encouraged to submit their manuscript, either before or after the meeting, to the Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication for publication.
  • Summer 2005 CFD Conference, draft CFP
    • Successful execution of CFD solutions for real-world configurations depends both on a robust and accurate solver as well as robust and efficient pre- and post-processing. Hence papers are invited that describe advanced techniques and extreme applications in the following areas:
      • Computational geometry, including CAD-CAE interoperability
      • Meshing, including surface and volume grids, grid adaptation, and moving meshes
      • Post processing, including multi-dimensional and transient visualization, feature detection, knowledge capture, and engineering animation
      • Collaborative environments, including user interfaces, internet technology, virtual reality, and linkages to design optimization and advanced engineering environments.

Telecon: 11 Feb 2004 at 1:00 p.m. central time

Here are the minutes from the latest TC meeting.

News from Reno

  • Read the minutes of our TC's meeting in Reno.
  • The AIAA (in the form of the New Initiatives subcommittee and related committees) verbally agreed to our TC's proposed name change to "Meshing, Visualization, and Computational Environments"! See the minutes of our TC meeting (above) for the details.
  • The panel session on Integrated Computational and Visualization Environments generated quite a bit of interest and was widely regarded as a success. From the "where do we go from here" category, the following ideas where proposed:
    • Write a summary of the panel discussion including state-of-the-art and currently known problems, combine that with similar writing in the other two main areas within our scope (meshing and visualization) and publish the result as a white paper to be our TC's blueprint for moving forward.
    • Sponsor something similar to the Applied Aerodynamics TC's Drag Prediction Workshop but in the area of computational environments.

Upcoming TC Events at AIAA Aerospace Sciences in Reno

TC Meeting
Our TC Meeting will be held Monday 05 January at 7:00 p.m. in "Shasta 2". Topics to be discussed at this meeting include:
  • Roster review and vote on new member nominations
  • Aerospace Sciences Meeting 2005
  • AIAA Fluids et al Meeting 2005
  • TC Name Change - Our TC's name remains Interactive Computer Graphics (a name we all agree is both inaccurate and detrimental to the future growth of the TC) because we have not yet reached a concensus on a new name (after AIAA rejected Computational Analysis and Visualization). The primary goal of the TC Meeting in Reno will be to agree on a charter, scope, and several candidate names that we can submit to AIAA so that hopefully by 2005 we'll have an updated name. Please read the TC Renaming section of this web site prior to the TC meeting in Reno and come prepared with ideas.
  • Proposal to make the Unstructured Grid Consortium a sub-committee of the ICG TC.
Technical Session: Computational Analysis and Visualization
Our TC's technical session titled "Computational Analysis and Visualization" will be held Tuesday 06 January beginning at 2:00 p.m. Seven presentations are scheduled. Session chair is John Chawner.
Panel Session: Integrated Computational and Visualization Environments
Our TC is hosting a panel session on "Integrated Computational and Visualization Environments" on Wednesday 07 January beginning at 8:00 a.m. Eight panelists will be participating. Session chairs are Theresa Benyo and Jay Horowitz.

Aerospace Sciences 2004 and TC Name Change Discussed During 28 August 2003 Telecon

During a nearly hour-long teleconference, the participating TC members got an update on the status of our program for January's Reno meeting and made some decisions about another attempt to get our name changed.

TC Name Change to Computational Analysis and Visualization Rejected by AIAA

During June 2003 we were notified that the AIAA's New Initiatives Committee rejected our proposed new name (Computational Analysis and Visualization) in favor of Graphical Analysis and Visualization. The TC unanimously rejected the latter, so we we remain Interactive Computer Graphics.

Activities for 2004 Planned During 03 April 2003 Telecon

The participating TC members sketched out a plan for the year's activities including the Reno conference, the TC name change, and authoring our article for Aerospace America's Year In Review issue.