NREL Video Walls Help Sharpen NREL’s Vision

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As the search for alternative energy nears the top of the nation’s priority list, scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) find themselves in an exciting and ever-escalating race for discovery. At its campus in Golden, Colorado, NREL investigates technologies, materials and methods intended to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. “We’ve got groups working on solar energy, wind energy, hydrothermal energy, building efficiency and automotive efficiency — all kinds of things,” says Bryon Donohoe, a NREL research scientist who works on biofuel technologies, primarily for use in transportation.

Divide and Conquer

“On any given day,” explains Donohoe, “three to five microscopists in our group collaborate with others who are trying to, for example, optimize a way of pre-treating or digesting a particular biomass. A sample will come to us for analysis, so we’ll divvy it up among our experts in microscopy and spectroscopy so we can understand more about the cell wall and the material’s structure. This way, we can unravel and deconstruct the complex material down to more simple molecules.”

But, says Donohoe, the process tended to suffer once the team reconvened to compare image data. “In a typical meeting, we’d sit with a little projector, shuttling a video cable back and forth between our laptops so we could see what the material looked like by transmission electron microscopy, by confocal scanning laser microscopy, by scanning electron microscopy,” he says. “We’d scavenge a couple more projectors so we each could display our findings, but the projected images were always low resolution, not very bright, and had poor contrast. We look for very minute details in these images, and it just wasn’t possible this way.”

Display Resolution Critical to Interpretation

Inspired by an Apple system at The Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Donohoe proposed a solution for NREL scientists to better visualize images in collaborative meetings. Called a ‘video wall’ (or sometimes a ‘power wall’), it consists of a grid-like configuration of wall-mounted Apple Cinema HD Displays, driven by Mac Pros. The video wall allows the team to visualize high-resolution data in high contrast on any of the screens in the grid. “Our primary form of data are images, so the way they’re displayed—the blackness of the blacks and the whiteness of the whites—has a lot to do with the quality of the data and how we can interpret it. In many of the images, one pixel represents about one nanometer of real space. So all of that detail is significant, and it’s really important for a group of people to be able to see and point to and understand the same thing at the same time so they can know the best way to proceed next with the experiment. That’s the collaborative aspect of it.”

Initially, the Biotech video wall consisted of six 30” Apple Cinema Displays, arranged three monitors wide by two high. But as the wall became a hit within the group—and as word got out within NREL and other groups started clamoring to use it too—they doubled its size to four displays wide by three high. A total of four dual-core Mac Pros run the video wall, including the administrator’s station.

A Logical Extension of the Digital Workflow

Another important requirement was the ability to seamlessly integrate the video wall into the Biotech group’s digital workflow. The research scientists capture images on various instruments using charged-coupled device (CCD) cameras. In preparation for meetings, they drop their completed images—typically in TIFF format—into a folder on the network, where an AppleScript automatically routes the file to the correct place for use on the video wall.

The ease of use and administration were important considerations for Donohoe when investigating the video wall solution. He says, “There is also enough ease of use that I can do troubleshooting by myself.”

An Efficient Tool for Presentation and Education

In addition to visiting research scientists, NREL hosts many other guests who want briefings and educational information, including people from all levels of government, educational institutions, and domestic and international interest groups. Says Donohoe, “Fifty percent of the use of our wall is as an educational tool, where we can quickly put up a story in pictures for people to get an idea of what we’re up to.”

Because of its great flexibility and utility in fulfilling a wide variety of communications needs, ranging from visualization to collaboration, to presentation, teleconferencing and education, the Apple video wall is a tool that NREL scientists are appreciating on many levels. Donohoe says, “For us, the bottom line has to do with the fidelity and accuracy of the images themselves. When we’re talking about resolution, clarity, contrast and fidelity, these are some of the best displays on the market, and that’s important.”