Introduction

The University of Groningen strives for an international top position in the field of education and research. To maintain and strengthen that position, a competitive ICT environment is necessary. Innovative research is being conducted in many different academic fields, some demanding even better ICT facilities. Therefore, the board of the university is glad to provide the research community with a multidisciplinary center with unique high performance computing and visualization facilities to meet the unique needs of the scientists, enabling them to work on the frontiers of knowledge.

The Center for High Performance Computing and Visualisation (HPC/V) makes these state-of-the-art resources available and offers expertise and support to the scientist. External parties can also purchase the services of the HPC/V, for example for architectural, landscape or interiordesign visualizations.

 

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High Performance Computing

Scientists at the University of Groningen can make use of the advanced high performance computing facilities offered by HPC/V. These consist of a Linux cluster, a grid cluster and a 12,288-core IBM BlueGene/P for the LOFAR project. People working at HPC/V help users with their problems and can even assist researchers to make their code run efficiently on those machines.

Visualisation

The Reality Center is a unique Virtual Reality (VR) facility which has many uses within and outside the university. It consists of the Reality Theatre, the Reality Cube and the portable 3D system. These facilities immerse the user in a virtual 3D world full of interaction, allowing scientists to gain new insights into 'real world' problems, ranging from molecular structures to the development of the universe to human behaviour. To enable optimal use of its facilities, the HPC/V supports scientists in these projects through 3D software development and 3D modelling.

Commercial applications

When the Reality Center was built, one of the prerequisites was that this high-tech installation would also benefit (local) non-university parties. This has led to many successful commercial projects, for example in the field of architectural and landscape visualization. HPC/V has also applied its expertise to several theatre performances and museum exhibitions. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are interested in doing a project with HPC/V.