Creating collaborative workplaces with the AccessGrid
Videoconferencing has revolutionised the way in which meetings occur - it has allowed people from all over the world to converse face-to-face, without the need to spend days travelling, and saving travel costs. However, scientists often require more than the ability to talk to one another - they need to give demonstrations of programs, present simulations or share large datasets. The Access Grid project aims to allow researchers to communicate and share research without having to travel halfway around the world, saving both time and money.
What is the Access Grid?
The Access Grid is an integrated environment that supports group-to-group communication using high-speed networks over the Internet. It provides high-quality audio and real-time video that allow groups at multiple sites to interact simultaneously and share data and scientific instruments.
Meeting participants (both local and distant) appear in windows projected onto a large screen. Additionally, data windows from participants' laptop computers can be integrated into the meeting (eg. display images, movies, presentations, spreadsheets).
a true collaborative workspace...
The AG is technologically more advanced than video conferencing systems and is a true collaborative workspace: you can share software applications and work collaboratively on the same document between geographically distributed locations. It may be used for large-scale distributed meetings, collaborative work sessions, seminars, lectures, tutorials, and training.
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| Figure 1: Demonstration of AccessGrid. |
The AccessGrid (AG) was developed by the FuturesLab at Argonne National Laboratory. Australia’s first AG node was installed at Sydney VisLab at the Australian Technology Park, with funding from an ARC grant to VisLab, by Bernard Pailthorpe, Chris Willing and others in August 01.
Since then the network has grown to more than 30 Access Grid nodes in Australia and more than 200 around the world. Queensland universities with AccessGrid nodes include UQ, JCU, QUT and CQU.
Current Research
AccessGrid is continuously under development, with researchers working on a number of different projects to improve AccessGrid.High Definition Video
The AccessGrid currently supports image resolution of 352x288 pixels (H.261). Current research is focussed on expanding the underlying video streaming services in the existing AccessGrid infrastructure via the addition of new DV and MPEG2 codecs, enabling the use of higher quality video formats, namely DV (720x576 pixels) and HDV (1440x1080 pixels). This will require the deployment of high-resolution video capture devices such as HDV/DV cameras capable of providing high quality images for AccessGrid collaborations. Delivering high quality video in the AccessGrid environment will increase the quality of the images streamed over the network. Any application that relies on high quality video, for example tele-medicine or remote video monitoring, will benefit from this work.
More information and downloads are available via the DV/HDV Project Page
Shared Applications
A number of shared applications for use over the access grid are currently in development/have been developed:- Shared Rasmol - an shared application for molecule display
and manipulation (developed at Argonne National Lab, with enhancements
added by visiting student Stephane Bidet);
Figure 2: Shared Rasmol
- GRASS - a Geographic Information System (GIS) modified to run as an AccessGrid Shared Application;
- A remote temperature monitoring tool developed as an AG
shared
application was designed to demonstrate the AccessGrid's possible usage
in the area of remote instrumentation.
Figure 3: Remote temperature monitoring tool.
Virtual Filesystem
Accessing large data within the AccessGrid environment is a priority for shared applications. We are developing a virtual filesystem for the AccessGrid. Currently AG is used predominantly for videoconferencing with PowerPoint presentations. To extend the AccessGrid beyond simple meeting scenarios and towards true collaborative working, we need to enable the incorporation of large data sets and collections into the AG environment. This goal is to be achieved by augmenting the collaborative capabilities offered by AccessGrid with the Storage Resource Broker (SRB).
For more information on AccessGrid, visit the AccessGrid Project page on the VisLab website.
Contacts
Chris Willing, Professor Bernard PailthorpeVisLab, University of Queensland
Jason Bell
Central Queensland University
Ian Atkinson
James Cook University