The Multi-modal Australian ScienceS Imaging and Visualization Environment (MASSIVE) is a national imaging and visualization facility established by Monash University, the Australian Synchrotron, the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), and the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing (VPAC), with funding from the National Computational Infrastructure and the Victorian Government. The MASSIVE facility provides hardware, software, and expertise to drive research in the biomedical sciences, particularly advanced brain imaging research using synchrotron x-ray and infrared imaging, functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), x-ray computer tomography (CT), electron microscopy and optical microscopy. The development of MASSIVE has been based on best practice in system integration methodologies, frameworks, and architectures. The facility has: (i) integrated multiple different neuroimaging analysis software components, (ii) enabled cross-platform and cross-modality integration of neuroinformatics tools, and (iii) brought together neuroimaging databases and analysis workflows. MASSIVE is now operational as a nationally distributed and integrated facility for neuroinfomatics and brain imaging research.

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We present encube-a qualitative, quantitative and comparative visualisation and analysis system, with application to high-resolution, immersive three-dimensional environments and desktop displays. encube extends previous comparative visualisation systems by considering: (1) the integration of comparative visualisation and analysis into a unified system; (2) the documentation of the discovery process; and (3) an approach that enables scientists to continue the research process once back at their desktop. Our solution enables tablets, smartphones or laptops to be used as interaction units for manipulating, organising, and querying data. We highlight the modularity of encube, allowing additional functionalities to be included as required. Additionally, our approach supports a high level of collaboration within the physical environment. We show how our implementation of encube operates in a large-scale, hybrid visualisation and supercomputing environment using the CAVE2 at Monash University, and on a local desktop, making it a versatile solution. We discuss how our approach can help accelerate the discovery rate in a variety of research scenarios.

Although large-scale stereoscopic 3D environments like CAVEs are a favorable location for group presentations, the perspective projection and stereoscopic optimization usually follows a navigator-centric approach. Therefore, these presentations are usually accompanied by strong side-effects, such as motion sickness which is often caused by a disturbed stereoscopic vision. The reason is that the stereoscopic visualization is usually optimized for the only head-tracked person in the CAVE-the navigator-ignoring the needs of the real target group-the audience. To overcome this misconception, this work proposes an alternative to the head tracking-based stereoscopic effect optimization. By using an interactive virtual overview map in 3D, the pre-tour and on-tour configuration of the stereoscopic effect is provided, partly utilizing our previously published interactive projection plane approach. This Stereoscopic Space Map is visualized by the zSpace 200®, whereas the virtual world is shown on a panoramic 330° CAVE2 TM. A pilot expert study with eight participants was conducted using pre-configured tours through 3D models. The comparison of the manual and automatic stereoscopic adjustment showed that the proposed approach is an appropriate alternative to the nowadays commonly used head tracking-based stereoscopic adjustment.