Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) researchers are awarded a supplemental subaward from the University of Hawaii to contribute to the research on &ldquo;SI2-SSI: SAGEnext: Next Generation Integrated Persistent Visualization and Collaboration Services for Global Cyberinfrastructure&rdquo;. The UIC lead on this project is Maxine Brown, director of EVL. Other UIC participants include Computer Science Research Associate Professor Luc Renambot, Senior Research Programmer Lance Long, and Associate Professor Andy Johnson, Research Director of the EVL. 
This new funding is part of a $527,000 supplement to the overall SAGE2 software project, with PI Jason Leigh at University of Hawaii. The supplement brings the overall project funding to roughly $5.5 million, with roughly 20% at the University of Hawaii and 80% at UIC. 
The overall project is for the SAGE2 software that allows groups to collaborate on large, multi-screen devices such as EVL&rsquo;s CAVE2&trade;. This new supplement is for the research team to consider the cybersecurity of SAGE2, in this era when cybersecurity is of such paramount importance. 
NSF Award ID: OAC-1441963 
Project Period: 10/1/18-9/30/19 
Award Amount: $386,000

The SAGE2 team at UIC/EVL remotely collaborated with the University of Chicago’s Research Computing Center during its fourth annual research computing symposium and exposition, Mind Bytes.

&ldquo;SI2-SSI: SAGEnext: Next Generation Integrated Persistent Visualization and Collaboration Services for Global Cyberinfrastructure&rdquo; Awarded

The SAGE Development Team at the Laboratory for Advanced Visualization &amp; Applications (LAVA) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa and the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago recently received one-year supplemental funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to their SAGE2 award, in the amount of $527,000, to focus on SAGE2 cybersecurity. The diversity and distributed nature of the SAGE2 user base provides a growing set of security concerns. Identity and access management procedures, in particular, provide unique challenges, given the variety of institutions using SAGE2 to collaborate using display walls. 
In July 2018, the SAGE2 Team began working with Trusted CI, the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence at Indiana University, to develop an Engagement Plan that outlines the scope of a 6-month timeline for the engagement, followed by 6 months of implementation. Trusted CI is helping outline Identity and Access Management (IAM) procedures appropriate for SAGE2&rsquo;s distributed user base. For example, SAGE2 needs to identify and provide access to local and remote sites involved in a collaboration as well as the users at those sites; such as: who is allowed to collaborate, are they allowed to share information or simply read it, and are they allowed to download information, etc. A secondary goal of the engagement, time permitting, is to determine if there are any unidentified high-priority cybersecurity needs revealed during the fact-finding stage that the SAGE2 Team should pursue; such as: securing the web server, securing documents that are shared, etc. 
<a href="http://blog.trustedci.org/search?updated-max=2018-08-02T11:59:00-04:00&max-results=7">Trusted CI Blog</a>

SAGE2 Team Engaging with the Trusted CI Center on SAGE2 Cybersecurity

The &ldquo;SAGE2 10th Annual International SC BOF: Scalable Amplified Group Environment for Global Collaboration&rdquo; Birds of a Feather (BOF) meeting will be held: 
<ul><li>Tuesday, November 13</li>
<li>12:15PM - 01:15PM</li> 
<li>Room: D163, Dallas Convention Center</li>
<li><a href="https://sc18.supercomputing.org/presentation/?id=bof137&sess=sess393">https://sc18.supercomputing.org/presentation/?id=bof137&sess=sess393</a></li> 
SAGE2 (Scalable Amplified Group Environment) is an open-source, web-based, user-centered platform for local and/or distributed small or large groups of researchers, educators and students to communicate information and ideas as if they were in the same room. Think of it as WebEx or Skype for cyber-enabled, data-intensive science, engineering and education. SAGE2, like its predecessor SAGE (Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment), is the defacto operating system for managing Big Data on tiled walls, providing the scientific community with persistent visualization and collaboration services for global cyberinfrastructure. This year&rsquo;s BoF will focus on eliciting community input on use cases and cybersecurity enhancements. 
To see SAGE2 demonstrations, visit us at the StarLight research booth on the exhibition floor from Tuesday-Thursday, Booth #2851. 
Together, we can advance scientific research and education by providing production-quality, community-driven, end-user open services for visualization and collaboration that utilize shared national and international cyberinfrastructure. 
See you at SC18! 
Jason Leigh 
University of Hawai&rsquo;i at Manoa 
leighj@hawaii.edu 
Maxine Brown and Luc Renambot 
Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) 
University of Illinois at Chicago 
maxine@uic.edu 
SAGE2 receives major funding from the National Science Foundation (award #ACI-1441963). 
SAGE and SAGE2 are trademarks of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. 
<a href="http://www.sagecommons.org">More information.</a>

SAVE THE DATE: SAGE2 10th Annual International SC BOF @ SC18 - Tuesday, November 13, 12:15 - 1:15pm

MS, 2019

Mirko Mantovani

BS Graduate, 2023 Research Experience Undergraduate (REU) 2019-2023

Zhongyi Chen

For those attending SC19 in Denver, Colorado, we will hold the &ldquo;SAGE2 11th Annual International SC BOF: Scalable Amplified Group Environment for Global Collaboration&rdquo; Birds of a Feather (BOF) meeting: 
Tuesday, November 19 
12:15PM - 01:15PM 
Room: 708, Colorado Convention Center 
<a href="https://sc19.supercomputing.org/presentation/?id=bof130&sess=sess279">https://sc19.supercomputing.org/presentation/?id=bof130&sess=sess279</a> 
SAGE2 (Scalable Amplified Group Environment) is the de facto operating system for managing Big Data on tiled display walls, providing the scientific community with persistent visualization and collaboration services for global cyberinfrastructure. SAGE2 is an open-source, web-based, user-centered platform for local or distributed groups of researchers, educators and students to communicate information and ideas as if they are in the same room. This year&rsquo;s BoF provides a forum to provide new and potential users with an overview of new features and enhancements, and to elicit community input on use cases and roadmaps. 
To see SAGE2 demonstrations, visit us at the StarLight research booth on the exhibition floor from Tuesday-Thursday, Booth #993. 
Together, we can advance scientific research and education by providing production-quality, community-driven, end-user open services for visualization and collaboration that utilize shared national and international cyberinfrastructure. 
See you at SC19! 
Jason Leigh 
Laboratory for Advanced Visualization & Applications (LAVA) 
University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa 
<a href="mailto:leighj@hawaii.edu">leighj@hawaii.edu</a> 
Maxine Brown and Luc Renambot 
Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) 
University of Illinois at Chicago 
<a href="mailto:maxine@uic.edu">maxine@uic.edu</a> 
SAGE2 receives major funding from the National Science Foundation (award #ACI-1441963). 
SAGE and SAGE2 are trademarks of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. 
<a href="https://www.sagecommons.org">More information.</a>

SAGE2 11th Annual International SC BOF @ SC19 - Tuesday, November 19, 12:15 - 1:15pm

NOVEMBER 18-21, 2019 - Members of the SAGE2&trade; Team who attended the IEEE/ACM SC19 conference - from University of Hawai&rsquo;i at Manoa&rsquo;s Laboratory for Advanced Visualization & Applications (LAVA), University of Illinois at Chicago&rsquo;s Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL), and University of Hawai&raquo;i at Hilo - were involved in many tech transfer activities, notably research demonstrations, a Birds of a Feather (BOF) meeting, and maintaining two SAGE2 walls managed by the SCinet DevOps team. The SC19 conference was held at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. 
SAGE2 BOF 
The &ldquo;SAGE2 11th Annual International SC BOF: Scalable Amplified Group Environment for Global Collaboration&rdquo; meeting was held on Tuesday, November 19, 2019. The BOF provided a Forum for SAGE2 developers to meet with the SAGE/SAGE2 global user community and potential users; specifically: 
- To introduce key SAGE2 team members 
- To highlight new SAGE2 sites and use cases - participating users were Jason Haga of AIST (Japan) and Paul Navrátil of TACC (USA) 
- To introduce SAGE2 v5 
- To provide a forum for discussion and feedback 
Download the SAGE2 presentation slides from the link at the bottom of this page. 
SAGE2 Demonstrations 
SAGE2 demonstrations took place in the StarLight research booth on the exhibition floor, November 18-21, 2019. Booth attendees saw firsthand SAGE2 v5&rsquo;s many new and advanced features, and talked with the key developers. 
In addition, SAGE2 partners from Japan&rsquo;s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) organized and hosted SAGE2 presentations in their research booth on the show floor, and also participated in collaborative demos between their booth and the StarLight booth. 
SAGE2 SCinet Participation 
SCinet is the SC conference&rsquo;s highly sophisticated, high-performance network infrastructure that is designed and implemented by a large group of academic, government and industry volunteers. SCinet&rsquo;s DevOps Team runs the internal software infrastructure for SCinet - including software to monitor and measure network flows to ensure services and provide alerts when there are issues. Starting in 2016, SCinet DevOps used SAGE2 on a tiled display wall outside their Network Operations Center in order to provide attendees with large-scale images about the network. This year, SCinet hosted two SAGE2 walls at the conference - SCinet Analytics and SC Theater. 
The SC Theater, with seating for 20 and standing room as well, was located next to SCinet on the exhibit floor. It showcased presentations by students and technologists from the HPC community, focusing on data-driven scientific applications. SCinet generated a heat map of the exhibit floor to discover where attendees were spending their time (accessing people&rsquo;s cell phone signals). Marc Lyonnais, SC19 SCinet Vice-Chair and Director of External Research at Ciena, commented that the heat map showed that the SC Theater equaled or outperformed large-scale industry booths with theater-style setups for vendor-specific presentations, depending on time of day! Note: The StarLight booth, where SAGE2 was demonstrated, was directly behind the SC Theater, so maybe those crowds were actually watching SAGE2 demos in the StarLight booth.

SC19 SAGE2 BOF Presentation Slides

SAGE2 Team Members at SC19

SAGE2 @ SC19: Demonstrations, Birds of a Feather, and SCinet Participation

Maxine Brown (UIC PI), Andrew Johnson (UIC co-PI), Luc Renambot (UIC co-PI) 
Jason Leigh (University of Hawaii Manoa PI) Christopher North (Virginia Polytechnic PI) 
NSF Award Number: 2003800 
Award Period of Performance: 05/15/2020 - 04/30/2025 
Total Amount Obligated: $2,250,000 
UIC Computer Science Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL) Director Maxine Brown, PI, co-PIs UIC CS Professor Andy Johnson and UIC CS Research Associate Professor Luc Renambot, and Senior Personnel EVL Senior Research Programmer Lance Long are awarded a $2.25 million dollar National Science Foundation grant entitled &ldquo;Collaborative Research: CSSI Frameworks: SAGE3: Smart Amplified Group Environment for Harnessing the Data Revolution.&rdquo; The grant runs from May 2020 to April 2025. It&rsquo;s part of an overall $5 million project, that also includes a team from University of Hawaii Manoa led by Jason Leigh and a team from Virginia Polytechnic led by Christopher North. 
ABSTRACT 
The Big Data revolution necessitates the use of sophisticated tools such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Visualization to harness the sheer volume, velocity and variety of datasets that are becoming the norm. However, it is the research community that must make sense of the data being amassed, so cyberinfrastructure must extend to people. SAGE3 (Smart Amplified Group Environment) puts the &ldquo;human in the loop&rdquo; by providing scientists with an intuitive framework that integrates state-of-the-art AI technologies with applications, workflows, smart visualizations and collaboration services to help them access, share, explore and analyze their data, come to conclusions, and make decisions with greater speed, accuracy, comprehension and confidence. 
SAGE3 builds upon the NSF-funded first-generation SAGE (Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment) and second-generation SAGE2 (Scalable Amplified Group Environment), which are today&rsquo;s de facto operating systems to manage Big Data on tiled display walls. Its development focuses on two fundamental components: AI-enhanced &ldquo;smart&rdquo; services and advanced computing resource orchestration to support reproducible work models for secure collaborative work. SAGE3 amplifies user productivity, providing them with commercially available and open-source AI solutions, which autonomously and transparently analyze data while continually learning and improving through user interactions. SAGE3 makes AI technologies broadly accessible, not just a privilege for the technically savvy. SAGE3 further democratizes AI by using Data Visualization to help interpret and explain AI models so users better understand how AI came to its decisions, which engenders user trust and can help identify potentially prejudiced or biased models. 
SAGE3 augments every step of the scientific discovery enterprise - from quickly summarizing large data, to finding trends and similarities or anomalies among one or more linked datasets, to communicating findings to scientists, public policy and government officials, and the general public, to educating the next-generation workforce. Ultimately, it is the scientists and future scientists who must Harness the Big Data revolution to solve the nation&rsquo;s grand challenge problems that will benefit society as a whole - from studying the diversity of life on Earth, to understanding the Earth and its systems from satellite imagery of its poles, to developing response scenarios for natural disasters such as landslides and pandemics that impact the citizens and economies of the world.

UIC Computer Science/EVL awarded $2.25 Million from NSF for SAGE3

UIC PI: Luc Renambot 
University of Hawaii Manoa PI: Jason Leigh 
Virginia Polytechnic PI: Chirstopher North 
NSF Award Number: 2003800 
Award Period of Performance: 05/15/2020 - 04/30/2026 
Total Amount Obligated: $2,250,000 
The Big Data revolution necessitates the use of sophisticated tools such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Visualization to harness the sheer volume, velocity and variety of datasets that are becoming the norm. However, it is the research community that must make sense of the data being amassed, so cyberinfrastructure must extend to people. SAGE3 (Smart Amplified Group Environment) puts the &ldquo;human in the loop&rdquo; by providing scientists with an intuitive framework that integrates state-of-the-art AI technologies with applications, workflows, smart visualizations and collaboration services to help them access, share, explore and analyze their data, come to conclusions, and make decisions with greater speed, accuracy, comprehension and confidence. 
SAGE3 builds upon the NSF-funded first-generation SAGE (Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment) and second-generation SAGE2 (Scalable Amplified Group Environment), which are today&rsquo;s de facto operating systems to manage Big Data on tiled display walls. Its development focuses on two fundamental components: AI-enhanced &ldquo;smart&rdquo; services and advanced computing resource orchestration to support reproducible work models for secure collaborative work. SAGE3 amplifies user productivity, providing them with commercially available and open-source AI solutions, which autonomously and transparently analyze data while continually learning and improving through user interactions. SAGE3 makes AI technologies broadly accessible, not just a privilege for the technically savvy. SAGE3 further democratizes AI by using Data Visualization to help interpret and explain AI models so users better understand how AI came to its decisions, which engenders user trust and can help identify potentially prejudiced or biased models. 
SAGE3 augments every step of the scientific discovery enterprise - from quickly summarizing large data, to finding trends and similarities or anomalies among one or more linked datasets, to communicating findings to scientists, public policy and government officials, and the general public, to educating the next-generation workforce. Ultimately, it is the scientists and future scientists who must Harness the Big Data revolution to solve the nation&rsquo;s grand challenge problems that will benefit society as a whole - from studying the diversity of life on Earth, to understanding the Earth and its systems from satellite imagery of its poles, to developing response scenarios for natural disasters such as landslides and pandemics that impact the citizens and economies of the world. 
<a href="https://youtu.be/kvNSLGcs5KE">View a video of SAGE3 being demonstrated</a> on EVL&rsquo;s YouTube channel.

SAGE3: Smart Amplified Group Environment for Harnessing the Data Revolution

PhD Graduate Student

Mir Masood Ali

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Professional University of Information and Management for Innovation (iU) announces a partnership with 7 international universities, including the University of Illinois at Chicago&rsquo;s (UIC) Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL). More specifically, Osamu Kamatani, Dean of iU&rsquo;s Faculty of Information and Management for Innovation, previously worked for Japan&rsquo;s NTT Network Innovation Laboratories, which had a 20-year research collaboration with UIC/EVL focused on advanced networking and collaboration. NTT was an early adopter of EVL&rsquo;s SAGE visualization and collaboration software and was involved in EVL-related advanced networking projects. iU will adopt SAGE2 and SAGE3, and will participate in the Global Research Platform (GRP), which is being organized by UIC/EVL, University of California San Diego (UCSD) and Northwestern University. The MOU formalizes and strengthens iU&rsquo;s collaborations with UIC/EVL. 
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
iU of Japan announces partnership with 7 international universities 
Friday, August 21, 2020 - The Professional University of Information and Management for Innovation (&ldquo;iU&rdquo;) commenced its first year of operation on April 1st 2020, and has now reached comprehensive partnership agreements with the following seven global prominent schools: The University of California, San Diego (UCSD); The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC); The University of Sheffield; Raffles University Malaysia; The National University of Singapore; Nikola Tesla Graduate School in the U.K.; and the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), Ondo State, Nigeria, with ongoing efforts for additional international collaborations. 
iU will continue to actively collaborate with major universities in Japan and abroad, with the aim to realize a &ldquo;Global University Network,"&rdquo; representing an intellectual hub for the IT and business industries centered around iU. 
Specifically, in addition to the exchange of students and faculty members and the implementation of joint research, the objectives are as follows: 
　1. A &ldquo;passport&rdquo; system that allows classes at partner universities and recognition of course credits 
　2. Joint development for research of new ventures and new products within a joint strategic special zone 
　3. Establishment of a special visa zone for international students 
　4. International collaborative research on the fields of eSports, super education, super sports, anime, otaku, etc. 
　5. Entrepreneurship support and Human Capital development 
The &ldquo;Global University Network&rdquo; advocated by iU, includes alliances with overseas universities. Through collaboration with each institution, iU will strive to develop and promote international joint lectures, joint experiments, implementation of various IT technologies, and joint research through exchanges of students and faculty from partner universities. iU will also work closely with prominent companies in Japan and overseas that support these activities. 
<a href="https://www.i-u.ac.jp/news/detail.php?id=199">Read the entire press release.</a> 
For Further Information, please contact: 
PR division 
Professional University of Information and Management for Innovation 
TEL: +81356551555 E-mail: <a href="mailto:info@i-u.ac.jp">info@i-u.ac.jp</a> 
For UIC/EVL collaboration information, contact Maxine Brown: <a href="mailto:maxine@uic.edu">maxine@uic.edu</a>

iU of Japan announces partnership with 7 international universities

Research Experience Undergraduate

Eseroghene Omene

October 1 - - EVL Director of Research Andrew Johnson has been named Interim Director of EVL following Maxine Brown&rsquo;s retirement from UIC. Johnson now assumes the responsibility of heading EVL - overseeing EVL&rsquo;s overall mission in education, research, development, and technology transfer. 
For over 23 years, Johnson has been a valued EVL faculty member (Professor of Computer Science) and researcher who has focused upon interaction and collaboration using advanced visualization displays and the application of those displays to enhance discovery and learning. 
His areas of expertise include visualization, virtual and augmented reality, natural language processing, visual analytics, and high-performance networking. 
Over the years, Johnson has been instrumental in the development of EVL instrumentation and systems, including the Continuum smart environment, CAVE2&trade;, LambdaVision high-resolution tiled displays, LambdaTable tabletop touch system, GeoWall portable geoscience display environment, PARIS augmented reality and ImmersaDesk virtual reality systems. He has overseen the development of numerous visualization and virtual reality applications across diverse domain disciplines from science and engineering to the humanities and art. Johnson is a highly regarded mentor and educator to EVL&rsquo;s graduate students and undergraduates alike. 
Johnson retains his position as Director of Research while leading EVL&rsquo;s future initiatives and innovations as Interim Director.

Andrew Johnson Named Interim Director, EVL

PRAGMA is hosting a Zoom-based SAGE3 presentation and live demonstration by SAGE3 Principal Investigator (PI) Jason Leigh and co-PI Luc Renambot as well as other SAGE3 Team members. In addition, SAGE2 users Prapaporn (Nan) Rattanatamrong of Thammasat University in Thailand and Jason Haga of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan start the presentation with several ongoing SAGE2 use cases. 
This presentation is part of the 2021 Re-Connect Webinar series organized by the PRAGMA (Pacific Rim Application and Grid Middleware Assembly) organization. Many PRAGMA members are long-time SAGE users. 
Since receiving an NSF award for SAGE3, the Smart Amplified Group Environment, in May 2020, the SAGE3 Team has been hard at work designing and developing SAGE3. An alpha version of the SAGE3 remote collaboration platform is being presented. 
SAGE3 is being designed to integrate AI technologies with applications, visualization workflows and collaboration services. SAGE3 takes advantage of major technological and sociological changes that have occurred since SAGE2 was introduced in 2013. Notably, web browsers and languages are maturing; scientific communities are relying on notebooks; science workloads incorporate AI programs and programmable infrastructure; and, given the pandemic, the workplace is changing to hybrid office/home environments that require not just video-teleconferencing but data-driven tools for largely distributed groups. 
All are welcome to attend! No pre-registration is required. 
Asia: Aug 27 (Friday), 8am(WIB/ICT) / 9am(MYT/TST/PST) / 10am(JST/KST) 
US: Aug 26 (Thursday), 6pm(PDT) / 8pm(CDT) / 9pm(EDT) / 3pm(HST) 
Zoom: 
<a HREF="https://hawaii.zoom.us/j/96474855666?pwd=UTBNYU4wQkJnc1c2cGwxdkxCTFBCZz09
">https://hawaii.zoom.us/j/96474855666?pwd=UTBNYU4wQkJnc1c2cGwxdkxCTFBCZz09</a> 
Meeting ID: 964 7485 5666 
Passcode: sage3 
The SAGE3 presentation and demonstration were first done for the CineGrid organization in June 2021. However, if you were unable to see it then, we urge you to tune into the PRAGMA webinar and then ask questions of SAGE3 Team members. This presentation will be recorded and available at a later date. 
SAGE3 is being developed by the Laboratory for Advanced Visualization and Applications (LAVA) and the Hawaii Data Science Institute (HI-DSI) at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM), the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and the Sanghani Center for AI and Data Analytics (Sanghani) at Virginia Tech (VT). SAGE3 receives major funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, awards #2004014 (UHM), #2003800 (UIC) and #2003387 (VT). SAGE, SAGE2 and SAGE3 are trademarks of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

Introducing SAGE3 - Zoom event hosted by PRAGMA

For those unable to attend the SAGE3 presentations and live demonstrations by SAGE3 Principal Investigator (PI) Jason Leigh and co-PI Luc Renambot as well as other SAGE3 Team members to PRAGMA and CineGrid earlier this summer, the sessions are now available via YouTube. 
<a href="https://youtu.be/UprsquVI6yo">Access the PRAGMA recording.</a> 
The same SAGE3 virtual presentation and demonstration was done for the CineGrid community; however, the Questions & Answers following the demo were very different. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyE09TxwhPE">Access the CineGrid recording.</a> 
SAGE3 is being developed by the Laboratory for Advanced Visualization and Applications (LAVA) and the Hawaii Data Science Institute (HI-DSI) at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM), the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and the Sanghani Center for AI and Data Analytics (Sanghani) at Virginia Tech (VT). SAGE3 receives major funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), awards #2004014 (UHM), #2003800 (UIC) and #2003387 (VT). 
SAGE, SAGE2 and SAGE3 are trademarks of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

SAGE3 Principal Investigator (PI) Jason Leigh, co-PI Luc Renambot and other SAGE3 Team members introduce and demo SAGE3 to the PRAGMA community as part of its 2021 Re-Connect Webinar series.

SAGE3 Introduction & Demo to PRAGMA and CineGrid - RECORDINGS AVAILABLE

Construction activities for the new $117.8 million, 135,000-square-foot Computer Design Research and Learning Center to be located at 900 W. Taylor St. is underway. The CDRLC will support the Department of Computer Science&rsquo;s growing student enrollment with 16,000 square feet of classroom space for collaborative teaching and learning environments, as well as 35 labs for faculty research activities in the computer science and engineering disciplines. 
The CDRLC will be the new home for the Electronic Visualization Laboratory featuring the latest technological and computing innovations to support research in advanced visualization, networking and collaborative environments. 
Read more about the CDRLC groundbreaking in the <a href="https://today.uic.edu/uic-breaks-ground-on-new-computer-design-research-and-learning-center">July 15th issue of UIC Today.</a> 
See a live webcam of the building&rsquo;s progress via the <a href="https://webcampub.multivista.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=aPublicWebcam.embed&WebcamPublicEmbedUID=5D4DCF05-AB2B-4770-A090-D79BE467F958">Multivista Construction Documentation webcam.</a>

New Computer Design Research and Learning Center Breaks Ground

Thanks to new NSF support, beginning May 2020, the SAGE team has been hard at work designing and developing SAGE3, the Smart Amplified Group Environment. This new funding enables us to take SAGE2, introduced in 2013, to a new level, integrating Artificial Intelligence technologies with applications, visualization workflows and collaboration services. The team demonstrated an early version of SAGE3 at two webinars this summer, hosted by the CineGrid and PRAGMA organizations (information below). 
In the past, we have looked forward to seeing old users and meeting new users at the annual Supercomputing (SC) conference, though team members will not be attending this year. However, we continue to be hard at work on SAGE3 and are planning a number of exciting announcements for early December. 
1. A new SAGE3 website. 
2. An &ldquo;alpha release&rdquo; of SAGE3, which is an early, first release of the software, for user testing and feedback. 
3. A &ldquo;how-to&rdquo; video explaining current SAGE3 features. 
4. A new user forum hosted on Slack (tinyurl.com/sagecommunity). 
Given SAGE3 is in an early prototype phase, we expect our users to continue using SAGE2 for work, meetings, classes, etc. We will continue to answer support questions for SAGE2 for the foreseeable future, but will not introduce new releases. 
Stay tuned for SAGE3 news updates as they become available !! 
Maxine Brown 
SAGE team member 
<a href="mailto:maxine@uic.edu">maxine@uic.edu</a> 
<a href="https://youtu.be/PyE09TxwhPE">SAGE3 presentation at CineGrid, June 2021</a> 
<a href="https://youtu.be/UprsquVI6yo">SAGE3 presentation at PRAGMA, August 2021</a> 
SAGE3 is being developed by the Laboratory for Advanced Visualization and Applications (LAVA) and the Hawaii Data Science Institute (HI-DSI) at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM), the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and the InfoVis Lab at Virginia Tech (VT). SAGE3 receives major funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), awards #2004014 (UHM), #2003800 (UIC) and #2003387 (VT). 
SAGE2 received major NSF support, award #ACI-1441963, to UHM and UIC. 
SAGE, SAGE2 and SAGE3 are trademarks of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

Exciting SAGE3 announcements planned for early December

SAGE2 (Scalable Amplified Group Environment) is the de-facto platform to support group work on wide-band display environments. Unlike most web applications, the SAGE environment, due to the nature of its collaborative model, needs a nuanced handling of security aspects. This paper details the security requirements of SAGE2, the Identity and Access Control model that was developed to address those requirements, and the details of the Identity and Access Management system that the SAGE team implemented based on this new model. Further, we present a comparison of this new system with some of the popular collaboration platforms to highlight the uniqueness of SAGE2 integrated with this new Identity and Access Management system. 
Keywords: security, access control, collaborative environment, wide-band displays

Examples of SAGE2 wide-band displays

Securing Collaborative Work in Wide-band Display Environments

The SAGE team has been hard at work designing and developing SAGE3, the NSF-funded Smart Amplified Group Environment, which is a total rewrite of SAGE2. 
SAGE3 ALPHA RELEASE AND WEBSITE 
<a href="https://sage3.sagecommons.org/">SAGE3 alpha version for Linux, Windows and MacOS</a> is now available for download. For those who wish to test SAGE3 and provide our team with constructive feedback, go to the new SAGE3 website: (1) download the software and display client and (2) watch the &ldquo;How To&rdquo; video. Note: Users who tested earlier SAGE3 versions should delete old versions and use the latest one on the website. 
SAGE2 
For users who rely on SAGE2 for production (collaborative research, teaching, meetings), continue to use. We will answer support questions for the foreseeable future, but will not introduce new releases. The final release and documentation can be found on the <a href="https://sage2.sagecommons.org/">SAGE2 website</a>. 
SAGE3 / SAGE2 COMMUNITY USER FORUMS 
New SAGE3/SAGE2 Community user forums are now hosted on Slack; to join: 
<a href="https://tinyurl.com/sagecommunity">tinyurl.com/sagecommunity</a>. 
<ul>
<li>For SAGE2, subscribe to the sage2-support channel.</li>
<li>For SAGE3, subscribe to the sage3-support channel.</li>
</ul>

Screen shot of SAGE3 session.

SAGE3 Alpha Version Available - Users: Please Help Test and Provide Feedback

July 19th - 22nd, EVL hosted the SAGE3 research and development team to discuss the past year&rsquo;s major activities, significant results, key outcomes, other achievements, and future developments. Meeting topics include current SAGE3 usage patterns, user interface assessment and refinement, documentation improvements, future development requirements, as well as the dissemination of research results to the SAGE user community. 
&ldquo;SAGE3: Smart Amplified Group Environment for Harnessing the Data Revolution&rdquo; has been funded by the NSF CSI program to continue and advance its efforts on the SAGE collaboration and visualization framework. SAGE3 - Smart Amplified Group Environment - is the next-generation, &ldquo;human-in-the-loop&rdquo; collaboration platform with artificial intelligence (AI) enabled services that serve as a user’s &ldquo;co-pilot&rdquo; to autonomously manage and link disparate datasets and orchestrate services. Its predecessors, SAGE (Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment) in 2004 and second-generation SAGE2 (Scalable Amplified Group Environment) in 2013, are today&rsquo;s de facto operating systems to manage Big Data on tiled display walls, enabling users to collaborate locally and remotely and access, display, share and manipulate documents and visualizations. 
SAGE3 is being developed by renowned cyberinfrastructure experts from the Laboratory for Advanced Visualization and Applications (LAVA) and the Hawaii Data Science Institute (HI-DSI) at University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa (UHM), the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and the Sanghani Center for AI and Data Analytics (Sanghani) at Virginia Tech (VT).

SAGE3 running on EVL Continuum Smart Space Tiled Display

EVL Hosts SAGE3 2022 All Hands Meeting

The SAGE3 Team has been quiet far too long, but we&rsquo;ve been very busy! Here&rsquo;s what to look forward to in the coming months: 
* SAGE3 beta version software with documentation will be released the week of the IEEE/ACM Supercomputing (SC22) conference, to be held in Dallas, Texas, USA, November 13-18, 2022. More information about the release will be forthcoming. For information on SC22, see: <a href="https://sc22.supercomputing.org/">https://sc22.supercomputing.org/</a> 
* A 1-hour SAGE3 Birds of a Feather (BoF) session and ongoing demonstrations and presentations will take place during SC22. At the BoF (Tuesday, Nov 15 from 12:15-13:15 in Room D168), the SAGE3 team will introduce the latest software release. The team will also share a booth in the research exhibition (StarLight booth #2847 as well as partner booths) and will conduct demos and presentations. More information will be forthcoming. 
* Educational SAGE3 webinars will be held, starting next year. Team members will present SAGE3&rsquo;s features and capabilities, provide use cases, answer questions, and solicit user feedback and use cases. More information will be forthcoming. 
Have you tried the SAGE3 alpha version for Linux, Windows and MacOS, which was released in December 2021? If not, go to the SAGE3 website, download the software and display client, and watch the &ldquo;How To&rdquo; video. 
<a href="https://sage3.sagecommons.org/">https://sage3.sagecommons.org/</a> 
REMINDER: SAGE3 / SAGE2 COMMUNITY USER FORUMS are now hosted on Slack. To join, go to the SAGE3 website and click on the Support menu: 
<a href="https://sage3.sagecommons.org/?page_id=60">https://sage3.sagecommons.org/?page_id=60</a> 
For SAGE3, subscribe to the sage3-support channel. 
For SAGE2, subscribe to the sage2-support channel. 
Thank you for your longstanding support of SAGE3 and we look forward to continued collaborations. 
Maxine Brown 
SAGE team member 
<a href="mailto:maxine@uic.edu">maxine@uic.edu</a> 
SAGE3 is being developed by the Laboratory for Advanced Visualization and Applications (LAVA) and the Hawaii Data Science Institute (HI-DSI) at University of Hawai&rsquo;i at Manoa (UHM), the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and the InfoVis Lab at Virginia Tech (VT). SAGE3 receives major funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), awards #2004014 (UHM), #2003800 (UIC) and #2003387 (VT). 
SAGE2 received major NSF support, award #ACI-1441963, to UHM and UIC. 
SAGE, SAGE2 and SAGE3 are trademarks of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

Announcing SAGE3 Upcoming Events !!

Oli Kosiacki

UIC Department of Computer Science 
Doctoral Admissions Webinar 
November 2nd 2022 @7 am-8:30am Chicago time (CDT) 
Webinar: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/uicwebinar2022">https://tinyurl.com/uicwebinar2022</a> 
See what the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Chicago has to offer! Located in the beautiful city of Chicago, UIC is among the most culturally diverse universities in the United States, and home to one of the most innovative computer science departments in the United States. UIC is Chicago&rsquo;s top public research university, and was recently ranked in the top 20 of the best 100 universities worldwide that are under 50 years of age. Doctoral students in their first five years of enrollment are guaranteed a fully funded appointment that includes a tuition waiver, and a stipend. Students are also eligible for summer support. Our students get jobs in academia, industry, and entertainment upon graduation, including positions at top research labs and companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Disney, and Amazon. 
During this webinar, UIC Computer Science faculty will talk about our research agenda, application fee waivers, the application process, application expectations in terms of GPA/GRE etc, and will take questions. A recording of the webinar will be made available on our Graduate Admissions page. 
Apply: <a href="https://cs.uic.edu/graduate/admissions/">https://cs.uic.edu/graduate/admissions/</a> 
Deadline: December 15th 2022 
See our flyer at: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/uic2022flyer">https://tinyurl.com/uic2022flyer</a> 
 <iframe width="420" height="315"src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eNoBbCm1skM">
</iframe>

Interested in pursuing a PhD in Computer Science in the United States?

SAGE3 beta version software and documentation will be introduced next week at the IEEE/ACM Supercomputing (SC22) conference in Dallas, Texas, USA, November 13-18, 2022. The SAGE User Community is invited to attend the SC22 Birds of a Feather (BOF) meeting and participate in ongoing SAGE3 demonstrations in the SC22 Exhibition. 
Attend the &ldquo;SAGE 12th SC BOF: Smart Amplified Group Environment Enhanced with Artificial Intelligence for Global Collaboration&rdquo;: 
 * Tuesday, November 15, 2022 
 *12:15PM - 01:15PM CST 
 * Room: D168, Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center Dallas 
 * <a href="https://sc22.supercomputing.org/presentation/?id=bof141&sess=sess312">https://sc22.supercomputing.org/presentation/?id=bof141&sess=sess312</a> 
Join us for SAGE3 demonstrations in the StarLight research booth # 2847 on the exhibition floor, Tuesday-Thursday. 
SAGE3, the Smart Amplified Group Environment, is the next-generation, &ldquo;human-in-the-loop&rdquo; collaboration platform, providing HPC users with the tools to access, explore, discover, publish, share, integrate, and reuse complex datasets. SAGE3 supports today&rsquo;s hybrid work/home environments (laptops, single monitors and display walls), and interfaces with a variety of computational infrastructures, workflows, notebooks, and analytics software through Artificial Intelligence-enabled services and orchestration services. It lowers the barrier of entry into AI for non-expert users, democratizing access to disruptive technologies for those with varying skills. 
The BOF will not be streamed. SAGE3 software and documentation will be available for download on the SAGE3 website. The SAGE3 team plans to hold SAGE3 educational webinars, starting next year. 
REMINDER: SAGE3 / SAGE2 COMMUNITY USER FORUMS are now hosted on Slack. To join, go to the <a href="https://sage3.sagecommons.org/">SAGE3 website</a> and click on the Support menu. 
 * For SAGE3, subscribe to the sage3-support channel. 
 * For SAGE2, subscribe to the sage2-support channel. 
Thank you for your longstanding support of SAGE and we look forward to continued collaborations. 
Maxine Brown 
SAGE team member 
<a href="mailto:maxine@uic.edu">maxine@uic.edu</a> 
SAGE3 is being developed by the Laboratory for Advanced Visualization and Applications (LAVA) and the Hawaii Data Science Institute (HI-DSI) at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM), the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and the InfoVis Lab at Virginia Tech (VT). SAGE3 receives major funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), awards #2004014 (UHM), #2003800 (UIC) and #2003387 (VT). 
SAGE2 received major NSF support, award #ACI-1441963, to UHM and UIC. 
SAGE, SAGE2 and SAGE3 are trademarks of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

INTRODUCING SAGE3 at the SC22 - Tuesday, November 15, 12:15pm - 1:15pm

NOVEMBER 14-17, 2022 -- SAGE3 Team members announced the release of the SAGE3 alpha version at the IEEE/ACM Supercomputing 2022 (SC22) conference, held at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, USA, November 14-18, 2022. Software and documentation are available on the SAGE3 website: 
<a href="https://sage3.sagecommons.org/">https://sage3.sagecommons.org/</a> 
The Team conducted ongoing SAGE3 demonstrations in the SC22 Exhibition and held its 12th SC Birds of a Feather (BOF) meeting to introduce current and potential users to SAGE3 features. You can learn about our SC22 activities and link to the BOF presentation, videos and photographs from the SAGE3 NEWS website: 
<a href="https://sage3.sagecommons.org/?p=807#more-807">https://sage3.sagecommons.org/?p=807#more-807</a> 
Note: Several long-time users have asked when server and client code will be released. The SAGE3 roadmap (see BOF presentation) targets February 1, 2023 for the SAGE3 Server release and March 1, 2023 for source code release. More information will be forthcoming. 
We hope you enjoy using SAGE3! Your feedback is always welcomed. 
REMINDER: SAGE3 / SAGE2 COMMUNITY USER FORUMS are now hosted on Slack. To join, go to the SAGE3 website and click on the Support menu. 
 * For SAGE3, subscribe to the sage3-support channel. 
 * For SAGE2, subscribe to the sage2-support channel. 
Maxine Brown 
SAGE team member 
<a href="mailto:maxine@uic.edu">maxine@uic.edu</a> 
SAGE3 is being developed by the Laboratory for Advanced Visualization and Applications (LAVA) and the Hawaii Data Science Institute (HI-DSI) at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM), the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and the InfoVis Lab at Virginia Tech (VT). SAGE3 receives major funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), awards #2004014 (UHM), #2003800 (UIC) and #2003387 (VT). 
SAGE2 received major NSF support, award #ACI-1441963, to UHM and UIC. 
SAGE, SAGE2 and SAGE3 are trademarks of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

SAGE3&trade; Alpha Release Announced at SC22

* Authors: 
Belcaid, M., Leigh, J., Theriot, R., Kirshenbaum, N., Tabalba, R., Rogers, M. University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 
Johnson, A., Brown, M., Renambot, L., Long, L., Nishimoto, A., University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL 
North C., Harden, J., Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 
Translational software research bridges the gap between scientific innovations and practical applications, driving impactful societal advancements. However, developing such software is challenging due to interdisciplinary collaboration, technology adoption, and post-funding sustainability. This article presents the experiences and insights of the Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment (SAGE) team, which has spent two decades developing translational, cross-disciplinary, collaboration tools to benefit computational science research. With a focus on SAGE and its next-generation iterations, we explore the inherent challenges in translational research, such as fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration, motivating technology adoption, and ensuring post-funding product sustainability. We also discuss the roles of funding agencies, policymakers, and academic institutions in promoting translational research. Although the journey is fraught with challenges, the societal impact and satisfaction derived from translational research underscore its significance in the broader scientific landscape. This article aims to encourage further conversation and the development of effective models for
translational software projects.

The process that defines domain science, computer science (CS), and sustainable translational research.

Reflecting on the Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment Team’s 20-Year Translational Research Endeavor in Digital Collaboration Tools

EVL Research Associate Professor Luc Renambot joins collaborators from the University of Hawaii Manoa and Virginia Tech to present the latest advances in SAGE3 with a tutorial session at the <a href="https://iss2023.acm.org/">ACM ISS 2023</a>. 
SAGE3, the newest and most advanced generation of the Smart Amplified Group Environment, is an open-source software designed to facilitate collaboration among scientists, researchers, students, and professionals across various fields. This tutorial aims to introduce attendees to the capabilities of SAGE3, demonstrating its ability to enhance collaboration and productivity in diverse settings, from co-located office collaboration to remote collaboration to both at once, with diverse displays, from personal laptops to large-scale display walls. Participants will learn how to effectively use SAGE3 for brainstorming, data analysis, and presentation purposes, as well as installation of private collaboration servers and development of custom applications. 
Presenters: 
Jesse Harden, Virginia Tech 
Nurit Kirshenbaum, University of Hawaii at Manoa 
Roderick S. Tabalba Jr., University of Hawaii at Manoa 
Jason Leigh, University of Hawaii at Manoa 
Luc Renambot, University of Illinois Chicago, EVL 
Chris North, Virginia Tech 
In-person and on-line Sunday Nov 5, 3 to 4:30PM, and Wed. Nov 8 1PM to 2:30 PM.

SAGE3 Tutorial Sessions at ACM Interactive Surfaces and Spaces Conference (ACM ISS 2023)

SAGE3, the newest and most advanced generation of the Smart Amplified Group Environment, is an open-source software designed to facilitate collaboration among scientists, researchers, students, and professionals across various fields. This tutorial aims to introduce attendees to the capabilities of SAGE3, demonstrating its ability to enhance collaboration and productivity in diverse settings, from co-located office collaboration to remote collaboration to both at once, with diverse displays, from personal laptops to large-scale display walls. Participants will learn how to effectively use SAGE3 for brainstorming, data analysis, and presentation purposes, as well as installation of private collaboration servers and development of custom applications. 
CCS CONCEPTS: Human-centered computing, Collaborative and social computing systems and tools; Open source software; Visualization systems and tools; Interactive systems and tools. 
KEYWORDS: Large Displays, Space to Think, Collaboration, Visualization, Data Science, Data Analysis, Computational Narratives

SAGE3 for Interactive Collaborative Visualization, Analysis, and Storytelling

EVL SAGE3 developers Luc Renambot and Lance Long with collaborators from the University of Hawaii Manoa and Virginia Tech present the latest advances in SAGE3 at the <a href="https://www.agu.org/fall-meeting">American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting 2023</a> held December 11-15, 2023 in San Francisco, CA. 
The AGU Fall Meeting convenes annually, attracting >25,000 attendees from 100+ countries to showcase their research and network among colleagues. Researchers, scientists, educators, students, policymakers, exhibitors, journalists and communicators attend AGU Fall Meeting to better understand our planet and environment, and our role in preserving its future. It is a results-oriented gathering, rooted in celebrating and advancing positive individual and collective outcomes. 
The SAGE3 team presented the latest version of the SAGE environment to the AGU 2023 attendees on the exhibition floor, focussing on data visualization, no-code dashboard building, and advanced collaboration, with examples using geoscience applications.

SAGE3 Developers and Colllaborators from EVL/UIC, University of Hawaii Manoa and Virginia Tech at AGU 2023 booth.

EVL Presents SAGE3 at AGU Fall Meeting 2023

Michael E. Papka has been announced as the new Director of EVL. Mike has a long history with EVL, starting in 1994 when he graduated with his Masters degree in Computer Science - - through many long-term collaborations between Argonne National Laboratory and EVL. 
After receiving his MS at UIC, Mike completed a second MS and PhD with the University of Chicago. Mike holds a joint appointment as a full UIC CS professor and at Argonne, where he has research and senior leadership positions. 
As the Director of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ACLF), Mike leads one of the U.S. Department of Energy&rsquo;s premier facilities for open science. He has spearheaded numerous efforts to build and deploy world-class computing capabilities for open science, notably advancing AI and large-scale data analysis. Under his leadership, ALCF recently joined the exascale era with the development of the Aurora supercomputer. 
We welcome Mike as EVL&rsquo;s new leader!

Michael E. Papka Named EVL Director

September 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). EVL&rsquo;s introduction of the CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment in 1992, the first widely replicated, projection-based, walk-in, virtual-reality (VR) system in the world, put EVL at the forefront of collaborative, immersive data exploration and analytics. However, the journey did not begin then. Since its founding in 1973, EVL has been developing tools and techniques for real-time, interactive visualizations - pillars of VR. But EVL&rsquo;s culture is also relevant to its successes, as it has always been an interdisciplinary lab that fosters teamwork, where each person&rsquo;s expertise contributes to the development of the necessary tools, hardware, system software, applications, and human interface models to solve problems. Over the years, as multidisciplinary collaborations evolved and advanced scientific instruments and data resources were distributed globally, the need to access and share data and visualizations while working with colleagues, local and remote, synchronous and asynchronous, also became important fields of study. This paper is a retrospective of EVL&rsquo;s past 50 years that surveys the many networked, immersive, collaborative visualization and VR systems and applications it developed and deployed, as well as lessons learned and future plans. 
Article appears in the journal PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality, in the Special Issue on Immersive Visualization Laboratories - Past, Present and Future, edited by S. Su and W. Sherman, <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/pvar/issue/volume/33">https://direct.mit.edu/pvar/issue/volume/33</a>. 
Article copyrighted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 
DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/pres_a_00421">https://doi.org/10.1162/pres_a_00421</a>

EVL faculty, students, and collaborators 1975.

Electronic Visualization Laboratory&rsquo;s 50th Anniversary Retrospective: Look to the Future, Build on the Past

The SAGE3 development team hosts a one-hour Zoom event to introduce the SAGE3 AI-enhanced collaboration platform developed jointly by the University of Hawaii, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Virginia Tech January 21-23, 2025. 
Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), SAGE3 is available to a wide range of scientific research & education communities at no charge. SAGE3 enables researchers and educators to seamlessly work together with data and visualizations, across devices - from laptops to large display walls. ﻿﻿Unleash spaces to think, collaborate, analyze, and make decisions with greater speed and confidence. See <a href="https://go.hawaii.edu/a5o">meeting details and registration information</a>. 
To learn more, please register for one of the upcoming 1-hour informational sessions. We will introduce newcomers to SAGE3 and update long-time users about its latest improvements.

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