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Environmental Computing Laboratory Status Report - 2nd QuarterThe Environmental Computing Lab project is ahead of schedule. Our plans call for it to be ready to support teaching in the Fall Semester, and it is nearly ready now. The server and all workstations are in place and configured, and the room will be rewired to support a 100mb LAN the week of July 12th. A few other minor additions and changes need to be carried out, and then the room will be ready for regular use. The setup was tested prior to final configuration when a weeklong GIS workshop was held in early June for 12 users. The workshop featured, among other things, use of ArcView’s new 3D analyst, an ArcView extension for viewing maps in 3D. Minor adjustments were made in the video drivers following the lab, to better handle 3D images. Software currently available in the lab now includes:
Regular backups are performed using Cheyenne’s Arcserve software. The machines were configured using Ghost, where one machine was set up as the "model" and an image made, then the image was loaded onto the other 13 machines. Ghostwalker was used to change the SID numbers. All machines have been integrated into the existing NT domain. By summer’s end, Dr. Ray Bryant’s soil-science group will move off of their current aging Novell server and will make use of the new NT server as a file and print server for both GIS projects and other soil science graduate level work. The New York City Watershed project will make especially heavy use of the server. Due to the large nature of GIS files another 9 gig drive has been added to the server at the expense of the department, bringing the total available drive space to 27 gigs. One dual processor workstation is in heavy use in the IRIS lab under Dr. Stephen DeGloria. This workstation provides teaching/research support for state, regional, and international projects. These projects use the image processing and GIS software installed to access and process satellite and terrestrial spatial data from various sources and visualize the results. Among these projects are: Northern New York Agricultural Development, New York State GAP Analysis Program, Watershed Science and Management initiative, Conservation and Management of Biodiversity in the Coastal Zone of the Dominican Republic, Conservation Farming in Tropical Uplands (Philippines), and Environmental Conservation and Sustainable Development (Costa Rica and Dominican Republic). In addition the workstation is supporting the Cornell ESRI site license program, providing ftp access to all GIS software available (Arc/Info, Arcview, etc.) under the site license. Another dual processor workstation is currently in use as a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) workstation in the Soil Information Systems Laboratory under Dr. Ray Bryant. It is running NT Arc/Info and the ArcView suite. In order to accommodate the large amount of data involved, it has been expanded with another 9 gig drive, bringing its total available space to 18 gigs. A CD-RW drive has also been added, in order to preserve final projects offline. The machine is used on a daily basis to work with digitized soil survey maps modifying them to meet national standards. Once completed, these maps will be provided to the internet community via the world wide web through ESRI’s Internet Mapserver, based on this machine. The third dual processor workstation was given to Dr. Kerry Cook, and has seen light use during her sabbatical. She has recently returned and will begin atmospheric modeling using the machine shortly. During her absence the computer was used to familiarize an Atmospheric Sciences lecturer with the Microsoft Visual Studio environment in order that he would be prepared for teaching Digital Fortran to Atmospheric Sciences students in the Fall using the Intel grant machines in the ECL. Environmental Computing Laboratory Status Report - 1st QuarterProject DescriptionAs of 1 April 1998, the Environmental Computing Laboratory (ECL) project has received twelve 300mhz workstations and one 233 mhz workstation. These workstations have been set up in a temporary lab as we await the end of the spring semester and delivery of the servers due from Intel this quarter. At the end of the spring semester, the workstations will be installed in a combined teaching and research laboratory in Room 1101 Bradfield Hall, the Bradfield Environmental Computing Classroom and Laboratory. The Bradfield Environmental Computing Classroom is used as a computer classroom and research laboratory for several faculty in the Department of Soil, Crop, and Atmospheric Sciences and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Several courses use the Environmental Computing Laboratory including: Resource Inventory Methods (SCAS 461), Geographic Information Systems (SCAS 420), Spatial Modeling and Analysis (SCAS 620), Environmental Biophysics (SCAS 483), Modeling the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere System (SCAS 675), Application of FORTRAN in Meterology (SCAS 353), Soil Fertility Management (SCAS 372), and the Science of Earth System Colloquium (SCAS 101, 102). Faculty responsible for teaching these courses will be using the Intel workstations beginning in the fall semester of 1998. During the summer of 1998 the Lab will be configured and tested for a variety of environmental science and education applications; and three geographic information systems (GIS) workshops will be given focusing on advanced spatial analysis, modeling, and image processing. The 233 MHz workstation was temporarily configured with Redhat Linux 5.0, and was used in an Atmospheric Sciences demonstration of remote access of climate databases using CORBA API. More recently, this workstation was reconfigured as an NT server, and is currently being used to test remote setup and distribution of applications in preparation for using this technology in the research lab environment. One workstation has been fully outfitted with all necessary software, and an image of its hard disk will be copied to the server and transmitted to the other machines via PC-Rdist. We have also received two 100 mb switches to link with the Intel servers. One of the switches will be used in the Environmental Computing Classroom where students will need to share and move large volumes of spatial data for course assignments and projects. The other switch will be used in Professor DeGloria’s research laboratory to provide enhanced high volume LAN transfer of spatial data (30-40 gb) that must be shared among six NT and Unix workstations. Accomplishments to DateCurrently, the workstations have been used by systems administrators while we await delivery of the remaining servers and switches. Once the workstations and servers are installed in both teaching and research laboratories, major users will include: (1) undergraduate and graduate students and environmental professionals enrolled in academic courses and extension workshops, and (2) faculty specializing in climate systems modeling, spatial modeling and visualization of nutrient and pollutant transport, spatial analysis of regional-scale biodiversity, and development of soil information systems. Plans for Next QuarterWe envision that research applications will begin during summer 1998 once all workstations and servers have been received and applications software installed. We plan to use the workstations beginning this fall for SCAS 420, SCAS 483, and SCAS 353. We also plan to use the workstations for courses in atmospheric modeling though the particular courses have yet to be specified. The workstations will used approximately 35-40 hours per week for teaching. During others times they will be used to support individual faculty and graduate student research in several application areas. Additional InformationWe are currently working on a web site about the Environmental Computing Laboratory which we hope will be available for viewing during mid-summer 1998. We plan to include images representative of several on-going environmental research projects that use the workstations as well as computing applications used in academic courses, extension workshops, and staff professional development activities. For this reporting period, the list of participants in this Intel grant include Professor Stephen DeGloria, Daniel Elswit, and Karen Rhodes of the Department of Soil, Crop, and Atmospheric Sciences (SCAS). Information regarding SCAS can be found on our department web site (http://www.scas.cornell.edu). In addition, Professor DeGloria serves as Director of the Cornell Institute for Resource Information Systems in the Center for the Environment (CfE). Information regarding the Institute and the Center can be found on the CfE web site (http://www.cfe.cornell.edu). Other faculty directly involved in this Intel grant are Professors Kerry Cook and Ray Bryant. Both individuals have been on sabbatic leave during this reporting period. |
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Last modified on: 10/08/99 |
