Houdini for astrophysical visualization

J. P. Naiman; Kalina Borkiewicz; A. J. Christensen

doi:10.1088/1538-3873/aa51b3

Houdini for astrophysical visualization

J. P. Naiman, Kalina Borkiewicz, A. J. Christensen

National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The rapid growth in scale and complexity of both computational and observational astrophysics over the past decade necessitates efficient and intuitive methods for examining and visualizing large data sets. Here, we discuss some newly developed tools used to import and manipulate astrophysical data into the three-dimensional visual effects software, Houdini. This software is widely used by visual effects artists, but a recently implemented Python API now allows astronomers to more easily use Houdini as a visualization tool. This paper includes a description of features, workflow, and various example visualizations. The project website, www.ytini.com, is aimed at a scientific audience and contains Houdini tutorials and links to the Python script Bitbucket repository to simplify the process of importing and rendering astrophysical data.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	058008
Journal	Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Volume	129
Issue number	975
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/aa51b3
State	Published - May 1 2017

Keywords

Methods: Data analysis
Methods: Numerical

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

Online availability

10.1088/1538-3873/aa51b3

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AU - Christensen, A. J.

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AB - The rapid growth in scale and complexity of both computational and observational astrophysics over the past decade necessitates efficient and intuitive methods for examining and visualizing large data sets. Here, we discuss some newly developed tools used to import and manipulate astrophysical data into the three-dimensional visual effects software, Houdini. This software is widely used by visual effects artists, but a recently implemented Python API now allows astronomers to more easily use Houdini as a visualization tool. This paper includes a description of features, workflow, and various example visualizations. The project website, www.ytini.com, is aimed at a scientific audience and contains Houdini tutorials and links to the Python script Bitbucket repository to simplify the process of importing and rendering astrophysical data.

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Houdini for astrophysical visualization

Abstract

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