Houdini for Astrophysical Visualization

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 datasets. Here we discuss some newly developed tools to import and manipulate astrophysical data into the three dimensional visual effects software, {\it 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, work flow, and various example visualizations. The project website, www.ytini.com, contains Houdini tutorials and links to the Python script Bitbucket repository aimed at a scientific audience to simplify the process of importing and rendering astrophysical data.

13 pages, 9 figures; accepted for publication in PASP Special Focus Issue: Techniques and Methods for Astrophysical Data Visualization

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Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Real-time colouring and filtering with graphics shaders
• Touching the Stars: Using High-Resolution 3D Printing to Visualize Stellar Nurseries
• Visualization in Astrophysics: Developing New Methods, Discovering Our Universe, and Educating the Earth
• A New View of Observed Galaxies through 3D Modelling and Visualisation
• Editorial: Techniques and Methods for Astrophysical Data Visualization