Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute


The Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute is a permanent research institute at the University of Utah that focuses on the development of new scientific computing and visualization techniques, tools, and systems with primary applications to biomedical engineering. The SCI Institute is noted worldwide in the visualization community for contributions by faculty, alumni, and staff. Faculty are associated primarily with the School of Computing, Department of Bioengineering, Department of Mathematics, and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with auxiliary faculty in the Medical School and School of Architecture.

History

The Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute started in 1992 as a research group in the University of Utah School of Computing by Chris Johnson and Rob MacLeod. In 1994 this group became the Center for Scientific Computing and Imaging, and in 2000 the name was changed to the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute. In 2007, the SCI Institute was awarded funding from USTAR to recruit more faculty in medical imaging technology. The SCI Institute was recognized as an NVIDIA CUDA Center of Excellence in 2008. In 2011, USTAR funding allowed faculty recruitment for genomic signal processing and information visualization. in 2014, Intel partnered with the SCI Institute to form the Intel Parallel Computing Center for Scientific Rendering to research and develop large scale and in situ visualization techniques for Intel hardware.

Research

The overarching research objective of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute is to conduct application-driven research in the creation of new scientific computing techniques, tools, and systems. Given the proximity and availability of research conducted at the University of Utah School of Medicine, a main application focus is medicine. SCI Institute researchers also apply computational techniques to scientific and engineering sub-specialties, such as fluid dynamics, biomechanics, electrophysiology, bioelectric fields, scientific visualization, parallel computing, inverse problems, and neuroimaging.

Open source software releases

The SCI Institute releases open source software packages for many of the projects developed by researchers for use by the scientific visualization and medical imaging communities. All projects are released under the MIT software license. Notable projects released by SCI include: