massiveMASSIVE (Multi-modal Australian ScienceS Imaging and Visualisation Environment) provides the hardware, software and expertise to drive research in the characterisation, biomedical science, materials research, engineering, and geoscience communities, and it stimulates advanced imaging research that will be exploited across a range of imaging modalities, including synchrotron imaging, neuroimaging, electron microscopy and optical microscopy.

MASSIVE is a unique Australian facility with a focus on fast data processing, including processing data "in-experiment", and large-scale visualisation. It offers Australian scientists access to two separate facilities with computer systems linked by a high-bandwidth communications link:

  • MASSIVE1, located at the Australian Synchrotron:
    • 42 nodes with 12 cores per node running at 2.66GHz (504 CPU-cores total)
    • 48 GB RAM per node (2,016 GB RAM total)
    • 2 nVidia M2070 GPUs with 6GB GDDR5 per node (84 GPUs total)
    • 150 TB of fast access parallel file system
    • 4x QDR Infiniband Interconnect
  • MASSIVE2, located at the Monash University campus located in Clayton with 118 nodes in four configurations (all cpus are running at 2.66GHz):
    • 56 nodes with 16 cores and 64GB of RAM per node 
    • 20 nodes with 16 cores and 128GB of RAM per node 
    • 32 nodes with 12 cores per node (identical configuration to MASSIVE1), 48 GB RAM per node (1,536 GB RAM total), 2 nVidia M2070 GPUs with 6GB GDDR5 per node (64 GPUs total)
    • 10 nodes ith 12 cores per node running at 2.66GHz(visualisation / high memory configuration) -192 GB RAM per node (1,920 GB RAM total), 2 nVidia M2070Q GPUs with 6GB GDDR5 per node (20 GPUs total)
    • 350 TB of fast access parallel file system
    • 4x QDR Infiniband Interconnect

These two interconnected high-performance computing (HPC) facilitiies operate at over 5 and 10 teraflops, for MASSIVE1 and MASSIVE2 respectively, using traditional CPU processing, and accelerated to over 50 and 100 teraflops, respectively, using GPU co-processors.

MASSIVE1 at the Australian Synchrotron provides researchers with:

  • A state-of-the-art computation, imaging and visualisation centre at the Australian Synchrotron designed to meet the exacting needs of scientists engaged in experiments at the synchrotron;
  • A supporting program with elements of collaborative research engagement, support and training and outreach.

Key examples of the science programs include:

  • 3D phase contrast computer tomography (CT) allowing reconstruction, analysis and visualization of very large datasets with new parallel algorithms for the biomedical and materials science research communities at the Imaging and Medical beamline;
  • Development and implementation of a computerised treatment planning system to enable clinical trials of Microbeam Radiotherapy (MRT) for cancer treatment at the Imaging and Medical beamline;
  • Provisioning of an expert-system called AutoRickshaw for solving the 3-dimensional structure of proteins from 2-dimenstional diffraction images in near real-time at the Macromolecular Crystallography beamline;
  • Rapid quantitative and non-destructive Synchrotron X-ray Fluorescence (SXRF) and Particle-Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) analysis in near real-time via the GeoPIXE software interface at the XFM beamline;
  • Resonant mie scatter correction extended multiplicative signal correction (RMieS-EMSC): Numerically modelling and correcting for light scattering effects in Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectra and hyperspectral FTIR images of biological tissues and cells at the Infra-Red beamlines;
  • Investigation of materials theoretically via computational methods such as density functional theory (DFT) leading to a quantitative approach to data analysis at the SXR beamline incorporating theory and simulation;
  • Post-processing, analysis and visualisation of images and data from these and other beamlines - adding value to experiments conducted at the Australian Synchrotron.

The MASSIVE project is currently funded by its three partners, Australian Synchrotron, CSIRO and Monash University.

Click here for more information about MASSIVE or to apply for an account