It may seem that the age of the supercomputer a la Cray-1 has long passed. But that’s not entirely true–we just don’t hear about them as often. For example, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are visualizing supernova, protein structures, and other complex phenomena using supercomputers.
The scientists there are using a technique called software-based parallel volume rendering, which interprets the billions of data points collected from MRIs, X-rays, or research simulations. They’re also working on equations that could search for sudden density changes–for example, separating bone from muscle data–in order to generate complex visualizations.
Using parallel computing, such as with Argonne’s Blue Gene/P supercomputer, scientists can create images using the computer’s 160,000 cores. (Try that on a Core i7.) The above image is a rendering of a supernova–specifically, the mechanisms behind a star’s violent collapse, with different colors and transparencies depicting different values of entropy. (Image credit: ANL)