The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest scientific project in history, which consists of multilateral nations within the world today. Japan is developing the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) “Kibo” : Japan's research laboratory in space. The Japanese ISS astronauts are now training and getting prepared to participate in an active role of experiments and operation phases aboard the ISS. Throughout the preparation of training there is a wide variety of applications and information of visualized technology.

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This paper overviews our project to develop techniques for modeling and conservation of cultural heritage through observation. Main research area of this project includes : reconstruction of geometric model, photometric model through observation, automatic creation of virtual and mixed reality model, and modeling and conservation of prominent skill of living national treasure. On top of this component development, we have been developing a digital archive of heritage objects.

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Recent development in microsystems and microfuidics has made possible systematic fluid dynamics studies to understand the microscale flow physics and to evaluate the performances of microdevices. Both qualitative and quantitative microflow diagnostic techniques, such as fluorescent dye visualization, confocal imaging of three-dimensional flow structure, and micro-PIV, have been developed to analyze co-current immiscible liquids in a microchannel fabricated in poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). To manipulate biological or chemical samples in biomedical microfluidic systems, it is essential that we should fully understand the low Reynolds number micro/nanohydrodynamics governing the microflow behavior at the micro/nano scale.

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Micro technology is one of the key technologies in advanced engineering of various fields. Analysis of micro scale thermal and fluid dynamics is also important factor in the development of micro technology, such as flow around micro machine, micro-fluidic, micro heat exchanging system, micro chemical and biomedical analysis system, and so on. Though the micro scale visualization is accompanied by some difficulties caused by the scale effect, it is effective in order to understand phenomena in micro scale flow. Recent topics on the method of micro flow visualization and applications in Japan are summarized.

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With the advent of microfluidics technology, micro visualization studies in Korea are abruptly increased since 2001. Many different disciplines, such as mechanical, electrical, chemical and bio-medical engineers are engaged in flow visualization studies with various microfluidic devices. Topics on micro visualization are MEMS-based micro power system, micro bubble, micro riblet, micro mixer and micro pumps. Recently, trends are moved from qualitative visualizations to quantitative studies employing micro-PIV techniques. Special workshops and issues in micro/nano fluid/thermal engineering have been conducted by many related academic societies. Especially, micro and bio-fluid flow visualization division of the Korea Society of Visualization successfully tied up active research groups in this topic.

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In this paper, a micro PIV system is developed to visualize and to measure microscopic flow in a microchannel. The system is applied to two types of microchips using two types of tracer particles, i.e. a total of four cases. In order to estimate the electrophoretic velocities of the tracer particles, the ζ-potentials of the particles and the channels are measured using a laser ζ-potential meter. The velocities of electroosmotic flow are obtained from the velocities measured by PIV and the velocities estimated from ζ-potential measurement. The electroosmotic flow shows flat velocity profiles while there are some discrepancies among four cases due to changes in the ion density and the potential depending on combinations of microchannels and particles.

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A three-dimensional inlet flow structure inside a microfluidic element has been investigated using a micro-PIV (particle image velocimetry). The present study employs a state-of-art micro-PIV system which consists of epi-fluorescence microscope, 620nm diameter fluorescent seed particles and an 8-bit megapixel CCD camera. Velocity vector fields with a resolution of 6.8×6.8 μm has been obtained. In this study, the microfluidic elements were fabricated on plastic chips by means of MEMS processes and a subsequent molding process. A three-dimensional velocity distribution was investigated by means of traversing the measurement plane with respect to the spanwise direction.

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As endothelial cells are subject to flow shear stress. it is important to determine the detailed velocity distribution in microvessels in the study of mechanical interactions between blood and endothelium. Recently. particle image velocimetry (PIV) has been proposed as a quantitative method of measuring velocity fields instantaneously in experimental fluid mechanics. The authors have developed. a highly accurate PIV technique with improved dynamic range. spatial resolution and measurement accuracy. In this paper, the proposed method was applied to images of the arteriole in the rat mesentery using an intravital microscope and high-speed digital video system. Taking the mesentery motion into account. the PIV technique was improved to measure red blood cell (RBC) velocity. Velocity distributions with spatial resolutions of 0.8×0.8 μm were obtained even near the wall in the center plane of the arteriole. Ensemble averaged time-series of velocity profiles in cross sections were compared. The arteriole velocity profile was blunt in the center region of the vessel cross-section and sharp in the near-wall region.

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Micro-PIV system was employed to measure velocity fields of flow inside microchannels. The experiments were carried out for several microchannels of different width (100800μm) and different inlet configuration (round and rectangular shapes). In addition, the flow inside teflon capillary tube of 750μm inner diameter was visualized using an x-ray micro-imaging technique. The x-ray micro-PIV system utilizes the phase contrast particle images to measure invisible internal flow structure nonintrusively.

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This paper deals with the generation, measurement and control of micro liquid droplet jet in water. In connection with the development of a lipid membrane biosensor device for underground water pollution, a method of working liquid behavior of micro droplet jet have been investigated by method of flow visualization. Experimental results show that the behavior of micro droplet is controllable by changing the driven pressure and the duration time of jet ejection. It is feasible to transport the working liquid to a given place by arranging the relative position according to the trajectory of droplet jet.

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Chemical reaction in a microfluidic device (μ TAS) is mainly governed by the mixing speed of the two reacting fluids. Therefore, the enhancement of mixing is very important to reduce the time of reaction. It also reduces the size of a microfluidic device. We examined two methods of the enhancement; the first method is a configuration to make the two fluids into a sandwich shape and the other is heating the fluids by microheaters embedded in the flow channel. The mixing and chemical reaction was examined by mixing of two different colored water layers and chemiluminescence (bioluminescence), respectively. The both mixing methods are promising for the enhancement of chemical reaction.

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A method of three dimensional velocities measurement is applied to flow in micro channel. Method of using stereo camera is ordinarily used as three dimensional PIV method. However the stereo camera method has complicated processes, such as setting camera parameters, matching spatial and time correlation between two corresponding stereo images, calculating the three dimensional velocities. The dimensions of channel for the experiment are 0.17 millimeters width and 0.61 millimeters depth. Water under the room temperature flows vertically in the channel. It is supposed the velocity component perpendicular to main flow is small. In this case, parallel multi images perpendicular to ray of camera as parts of three dimensional flow are useful. Parallel images can obtain by making to change distance from camera to subject. The method in this paper is setting a thin glass between camera and subject. This method is simpler than stereo camera method.

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The application of the wavelet transform in the field of fluid mechanics started from 1988. In the past decade, there has been a great progress for studying turbulence in the use of wavelet transform. In this article the generally properties of the wavelet transform are first reviewed from the view of fluid mechanics applications. Then an overview of some applications on flow visualization, such as turbulent image analysis, PIV vector multi-resolution analysis, PIV image compression, and PIV results compression, are described.

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Eigen pattern extracts the implicit knowledge in the picture-story show The Little Mermaid. The eigen pattern changing reveals the effect of colors sympathized with the emotion of the main character Mermaid. The picture-story show is a kind of visual arts. Watching the pictures stimulates audience's imagination, and then it helps to understand the atmosphere of story world. Pictures with various colors reflect on Mermaid's complex feelings. On the other hand, when Mermaid makes up her mind, then the pictures become monochrome. Furthermore Mermaid paints with pale color clothes at all times in this picture-story show. This means, other character with pale color clothes sympathized with Mermaid. This is the effective way for audience to understand the story.

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The motivation behind this work was to analyze the attitude of the journalist through his 5 serial articles, concerning the local referendum about the construction of nuclear power station, which had written after having interviewed in 4 areas. The articles were composed by his description and the opinion of interviewers : supporters, objectors and others. Employing a mathematical method, the analysis of the articles will be focused on more attention to find out the general trend and opinions. The multi-resolution analysis is capable of extracting and discussing the detailed information of 4 areas. The examination of the multi-resolution level suggests that the indication of intention of inhabitants depends on the extent of chains where they live. Furthermore, it is clarified that the journalist maintains his attitude of neutrality but it seems that he presses indirectly inhabitants for indicating their intention by devising an order of articles.

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The image cognition methodology has been applied to investigate the tennis stroke form. The eigen pattern of an image is obtained by projecting the pixel information in x-y screen coordinate to a red, green and blue coordinate systems. Tennis player worn a white shirts and pants with red, green and blue longitudinal lines. The forehand ground stroke slightly before the onset of the forwardswing was captured by digital camera and analyzed by a computer. According to our analysis, the advanced player's form has been revealed to take his racket back with more prominent upper body twisting than the beginners do. Our proposed approach is the first objective method for tennis stroke investigation, and has considerable potential for extracting the proper tennis stroke.

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Characters' appearance pattern in a short story is visualized by means of the discrete wavelets. The first person character of the story plays an important role in making progress as a narrator. Namely, the first person tells the storyline and own feelings. The other characters construct each episode and maintain reality in the whole story. Wavelet analysis to characters' appearance in a short story Duke by Ekuni reveals the role of each character. In the story, Duke's image forms the fantastic atmosphere throughout the story. Author's trick for the impressive work is studied by wavelet visualization of the relation among the characters. Furthermore, investigating the first person singular and plural clarifies the roles of watashi and shonen.

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Principal purpose of this paper is to obtain the frequency classified current distribution on the multi-layered Printed Circuit Board without any decomposition and destruction. Only inverse approach, where the current distributions could be estimated from the locally measured magnetic fields around the electronic devices, enables us to carry out this non-destructive inspection. Since the modern PCB is composed of a lot of semi-conductor elements processing various frequency signals, then we focus on the frequency classified current distributions. Concretely, at first, we have measured magnetic field from the top and bottom sides of a PCB. Second, we have applied Fourier transform to the output sensor signals in order to classify the measured magnetic field into the distinct frequency components. Third, solving for the linear system of equations to each of the classified magnetic fields yields the frequency classified current distributions on each of PCB layers. Finally, convolution of the obtained current distributions between the top and bottom sides of estimation exactly identifies the current flowing paths.

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Ferromagnetic materials, i.e., iron steel and its composites, are widely used as the frame parts of various artificial products and constructions such as automobile, air plane, building, bridge and so on. Because of its mechanical property, iron steel is most popular in use for the frame materials to maintain their mechanical strength. On the other side, nondestructive testing of iron steel is an extremely important way in order to keep their mechanical safeness.
One of the deterministic differences between the ferromagnetic and non-magnetic materials is that all of the ferromagnetic materials when applying external magnetic field attracts major magnetic field; and also magnetization process of ferromagnetic materials always accompanies with the Barkhausen effects.
In the present paper, we propose a new nondestructive testing methodology for the ferromagnetic materials fully utilizing the Barkhausen effects along with smart visualized information processing.

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In recent years, PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) are widely employed to work out the compact as well as lightweight electrical devices. However, inspection of their regularity is not so simple because of their complex electric circuit structures. One of the non-destructive tests to do that is to measure in the vicinity the electromagnetic fields essentially accompanying with their operation. Estimating the field sources from the measured fields becomes useful and important information not only for checking up their regularity but also for the EMC/EMI problems. According to this background, we are motivated to propose the current viewer, which makes it possible to visualize the current distributions in PCBs.
Previously, we have proposed the current viewer in order to visualize the current distribution on planar electric circuits. Operation principle of this current viewer is based on those of modified Rogowski coil method. The mechanical structure of this viewer is that the sensor solenoid coils does not cover all the circumferences of the target current carrying conductor, but covers a semicircle. In this paper, we propose the vector current viewer by combining two current viewers in orthogonal way, Our vector current viewer is capable of visualizing the magnitude as well as direction of target current along with the Lissajous diagram methodology.

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Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is one of the cheapest ways in order to get a tomography. Principal purpose of the EIT is to obtain a conductivity distribution of a two-dimensional cross-sectional target area by injecting the current. EIT utilizes a functional relationship between the injection current and surface potential distribution depending on the conductivity difference. This functional relationship of EIT reveals that EIT has versatile possibilities but it is essentially reduced into solving for an ill-posed inverse problem. In order to develop the EIT, we try to apply the generalized vector sampled pattern matching (GVSPM) method to the inverse problem accompanying with EIT. As an initial test experiment of EIT development, we try to evaluate a resistance distribution in a planer circuit by measuring entire nodal voltages while changing the electrodes for current injection. As a result, it is revealed that a fairly good result could be obtained as an initial test example.

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To effectively visualize huge volume datasets, we should consider the following view points; 1) A collaborative analysis of the datasets is required. 2) The datasets may not be stored on hand.3) The datasets may overflow into physical memory. These can cause a problem on interactive visualization. To solve the problem, we will initiate a project in which we plan to develop a teleimmersive environment for collaborative visual data mining.

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This paper presents 3D representation algorithm using mesh net that is suitable for measurement of human shape : 'foot'. The stereo matching is simple method to obtain 3D measurements. But stereo matching problem is recognized as the most difficult step in computer vision. We implemented application that measures foot size with mesh net, and developed stereo matching algorithm using thinning and constrained depth first search. The foot is covered with mesh cloth such as tights and is caught by several consumer digital still cameras. Intersections of mesh are used here for the matching point of stereo images. We adopted thinning process to mesh image for searching intersections.

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From the year 2000 to 2002, the super computer system located on Naka Fusion Research Establishment, Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) has been replaced. Since it is the massively parallel scalar computer with 768Gflops, the amount of data outputted from the numerical simulation becomes much larger and is about several hundred Gbytes. In this paper, which scientific visual analysis system is more useful to extract and understand physical phenomena from the large amount of data is investigated and the performance of the established system is estimated.
From the year 2001, Information Technology-Based Laboratory (ITBL) project has progressed and its basic technology has been developed collaboratively between Center for Promotion of Computational Science and Engineering (CCSE), JAERI and Institute of Physical and Chemical Research. ITBL aims to construct the virtual collaborative research laboratory on SuperSINET, where large-scale simulations can be carried out as well as large-scale experimental institutions can be used through Internet. The visualization software PATRAS, which has been developed on ITBL, is introduced.

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We present a visualization technique which a large scale detects the structure at all scales removing from the user the responsibility of extracting information implicit in the data, and presenting the structure explicitly for analysis and retrieval. In typical scientific applications, data is represented at the nodes of a mesh of elements and interpolated linearly across the interior of the elements. A critical point exists in the gradient field of the Scalar filed. It is possible at few cost to express the Scalar field using the graph which connected the critical point.
In past, we proposed a technique for calculating isosurfaces efficiently using an extrema skeleton, which consists of elements and connects all extrema points [1].
In this algorithm, extrema points in a scalar field are first extracted. A graph is then generated in which the extrema points are taken as nodes. And our work can be regarded as an extension of our original technique, because our new skeleton connects saddle points in addition to extrema points.
To confirm the effectiveness of our technique, we extract features skeletons of CFD results for forecasting weather and determine linear correlation between multiple scalar variables such as wind velocity, temperature, and humidity.

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This paper presents an interim report on a collaborative project, called T-project, whose aim is to develop a set of effective topological tools for allowing users to visually identify structural features of interest embedded in large-scale volume datasets. An overview of underlying topo-logical representations and progressive volume data mining schemes is given with application to a time-varying volume dataset from atomic collision research. Future R&D issues are also mentioned.

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Line integral convolution (LIC) is an effective and powerful technique for generating images from vector fields. In the 3D-LIC, it is very important to select an adequate region of interest (ROI) in the vector field. One way for specifying ROI is to use a surface defined in the vector field. The other way is to use a significance map that defines a ROI related values at each point in the vector field. To represent an anisotropic vector field around a vortex center in an understandable way, we introduced a time-oriented significance map. Our technique for specifying ROI is to use a passage-time for a mass-less particle to travel from near a vortex center to a pixel location. In our technique, what we call “restricted LIC technique (RLIC), ” we refer to the passage-time buffer before we start the convolution p.rocess at a pixel location. To confirm the effectiveness of our technique, we use an anisotropic swirl vector field and construct two types of significance maps, a distance-oriented map and a time-oriented map. We will show the difference in the resulting images are generated from these significance maps.

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Two type methods for identifying vortex structure have been applied to a complex internal flow field in engineering application. One defines the vortex core by the pressure minimum in the flow field. The other identifies the vortex axis by a semi-analytic method based on the critical-point theory. The latter is found to capture the vortex core sharply in spite of the large pressure gradient in the main stream. The distribution of normalized helicity along the vortex core identified is very useful in investigating the nature of the vortex quantitatively.

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This paper presents a tool for visualizing Web access logs, which has two views. The left view represents Web sitemaps by a set of webpage icons. It places the icons onto display spaces by data jewelry box algorithm. The right view represents Web access statistics by a bar chart. It aggregates the accesses according to user-specified attributes, such as time, client, and status. When a user clicks a bar in the right view, the left view highlights icons that have corresponding accesses. When a user clicks an icon in the left view, the right view shows the access statistics of the clicked webpage. These combinations of the two views help users to find problems of websites, and discover trends of accesses.

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In the genome science field, decoding whole human genome sequences identifies gene locations. And development of DNA Microarray technology enables us to measure more than 10, 000 gene expression levels at once. Integration of gene location and expression information is expected to detect abnormal chromosome regions that cause some diseases. However the integration is difficult because the amount of information to integrate is huge and the definition of abnormal chromosome regions is not clear. To solve this problem, not only mathematical and statistical approach method but also visualization is effective. But the visualization methodology has not fully discussed yet. So we developed the visualization based methodology that integrate the gene location and expression information. We visualize those data as a map, and then applied the gene expression analysis.

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This paper presents a concept of real-time parallel volume rendering system for time-varying scientific visu-alization based on the scalable architecture of ReVolver/C40 developed by Kyoto University. A preliminary experimental environment using the rendering pipeline of ReVolver/C40 and newly designed DataProbe which is an additional hardware for parallel volume data transfer is also presented. In terms of the load balancing in parallel volume rendering, a block cyclic data assignment with the early ray termination technique is also discussed.

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Rotating vane type flow meter has been widely used to measure the water quantity to each household through water supply network. Depending on the water quantity, three types of meter, single case type for small, double case type for medium, and vertical type for large amount, are used. All type devices consist of vane rotor and it is set across the water piping. The rotor rotation is supposed to be proportional to the total flow quantity. Since this is a measuring device, it must be reliably accurate for defined usage condition, which is usually very strict and wide. In order to design such device, knowledge on the flow condition in them is essential. Here we used Hydrogen Bubble Flow Visualization technique, and obtained complete understanding of the flow character for the double case flow meter.

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A cold moderator using liquid hydrogen is one of the key components in a MW-scale spallation target system. which directly affects the neutronic performance both in intensity and resolution. Flow visualization experiments were carried out in order to clarified a flow field in a cold moderator vessel, so that jet induced flows such as recirculation flows and stagnant regions were obserbed. As for a cylindrical moderator vessel, analytical results of velocity distributions obtained with a standard k-ε turbulent model agreed well with experimental results obtained with a PIV system. However, analytical heat transfer coefficients of a bottom of the vessel could not predict experimental values well.

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We attempt to develop the compact, non-exhaust, potable tornado generator with centrifugal impeller and vortex casing, which generates tornado like vortex funnel. To optimize the impeller and casing design, numerical simulations and experimental investigations are carried out. In the design optimization, numerical visualization plays an important role for understanding three dimensional flow field. An artificial tornado is also visualized by using polystyrene tracers in the water tank as simulation of the room space.

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In this work, an AW (Air Wave) type EHD pump was examined, where the electrode system consists of a wire electrode in gas-phase and a partially immersed plate electrode inclined to the gas-liquid interface. This type of non-intrusive/non-moving component pump is normally used for the transport of hazardous liquid from containers or for the cleanup of spilled hazardous liquids. The EHD liquid pumping phenomenon was generated on the inclined plate electrode surface near the gas-liquid interface exposed to gas-phase corona discharges. The measurements of liquid flow towards the plate electrode surface were conducted by PIV. The fundamental characteristics of the two-phase EHD pump such as time-averaged liquid pumping flow rate, time-averaged current and internal liquid flow distribution for DC applied voltage were experimentally investigated in detail. The pumping performance was characterized by corona discharge induced dielectric EHD and conductive EHD, fluid viscous and gravity forces in terms of dimensionless parameters.

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In order to minimize the wind noise generated by a Sirocco fan, it is most important to understand the details of the flow field about a Sirocco fan. As the shape of a Sirocco fan is very complicated, it has not been very easy to capture the flow patterns about a Sirocco fan. Presently, the authors have utilized the spark tracing method to visualize the flow field around a Sirocco fan and have observed the inflow patterns with and without the intake load. It has been proved that the intake load causes the drastic changes on the inflow pattern and thus the changes of the flow pattern in the scroll chamber. These changes might be the major cause of the wind noise of a Sirocco fan operating under the intake load. Moreover, applying the DP matching technique to the obtained images, the quantitative velocity components have also been calculated.

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To analyze the complex three dimensional flow structure of an Turbo-fan and determine the validity of its application, PIV is used to provide detailed space and time resolved experimental data for understanding and control of flow field. The high resolution PIV, was successfully employed in this study for the investigation of flow structure in and around the Turbo-fan. The three-dimensional velocity fields, turbulent intencity and mean vorticity distributions of the stereoscopic PIV measurement results were represented at rotor exit region.. From the velocity distribution, the vorticity and turbulent intensity distribution, which are known to be major factors of fan noise, were calculated.

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A temperature sensitive particle, which can be utilized for the three-dimensional simultaneous measurement of velocity and temperature, has been developed by introducing two fluorescent dyes into the microparticle and its thermo-optical characteristics are quantified. Even though the particle involving a fluorescent substance inside has the temperature sensitivity according to the LIF technique, the intensity of the fluorescence also depends upon the size of the particle and the intensity of the excitation light and thus the multiple-point temperature measurement with this particle was not very easy. Presently, by introducing two fluorescent materials with different temperature sensitivities into the particle, the quantitative temperature measurements with different sizes of particles can now be performed. A three-dimensional simultaneous measurement of velocity and temperature in the turbulent natural convection layer has also been carried out by introducing the two-color LIF particles. The results of the temperature measurement showed a reasonable agreement with DNS data.

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We present our developed effective yet versatile non-destructive estimation techniques for electric and thermal physical parameter distributions, i.e., the synthetic magnetic vector field measurement-based electric conductivity and/or dielectric constant distributions, and the synthetic infrared temperature measurement-based thermal conductivity and/or thermal diffusibility distributions. In the electric and thermal estimations, the same type simultaneous first-order partial differential equations are dealt with, in which measurement errors of magnetic fields and temperature fields/improper configurations of reference regions and externally situated sources are coped with in a novel way by together utilizing computationally efficient a least squares method, a mollification method, and a regularization method. In principle, an arbitrary geometry of the target is dealt with. The feasibilities of our developed techniques are verified through numerical simulations and experiments (target : cupper plates), with resultant estimations indicating that our techniques can be practical means for robustly estimating target electric and thermal parameter distributions. Obviously, this technique will open up new aspects of non-destructive evaluation of various materials/structures (e.g., detection of quench, monitoring of production/growing process, repairing process, etc.) and of non-invasive examination of various living things (e.g., monitoring of pathological state and/or activity including bio-conductive path etc.).

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Trajectories of the billiard balls have long been assumed to behave as the collision of mass points. As a matter of fact, the beginners can enjoy the games with this simple assumption. On the contrary, the professional players know the differences from the theory by their plentiful experiences and adjust them by intuitions. In order to investigate the mechanisms of the differences from the theory and to quantify them under various circumstances, the authors of this study have visualized the movements of the balls by the high-speed camera and have investigated the trajectories quantitatively by using the digital image processing techniques. As a result, velocity, momentum and kinetic energy before and after the collisions between ball and rubber cushion and between ball and ball have been measured. Moreover, the evidence of “throw”, which is one of the typical discrepancies from the theory, has been shown quantitatively.

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With the spread of the Internet, the technology of Web3D that can display three-dimensional computer graphics on Web has been developed. Using VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) to be a kind of Web3D, the historical cultural properties of art museum, the ruins of a castle etc. relate to Numazu city in Japan to be the seat of our university were made, and the inside of three-dimensional space could be inspected freely through the Internet. The contents that have been made are Gen Yamaguchi virtual art museum, Numazu Imperial Villa, Bokusui Wakayama Memorial Hall, Koukoku-ji castle and Numazu Shoji art museum. Moreover, the system to retrieve easily these contents was developed.

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It is said that the Jyoumon Age Culture continued from 16, 000 years ago to 2, 500 years ago and the people who bore the culture is called Joumon-jin. Earthen ware that were produced by Jyoumon-jin are called Joumon-doki. Jyoumon-doki have been discovered in various parts of Japan and there are many kinds of them. Among them, one discovered at Umataka-ruins in Niigata Prefecture at the end of 1931 is very famous for its nice patterns and it was named Kaen-doki.
The patterns on its lip and side wall are related to the water flow, the authors believe. The nice vortex patters of Kaen-doki put on their side wall are two kinds of vortex observed down stream of piles and rocks in the river acting the pollen and fallen leaves, etc. as tracers.
This fact was appeared again using Floating Tracer Method, one of the visualization methods of modern age, and the computer simulation.

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This paper describes PIV measurements, using a microscope, high sensitive CCD camera and double pulse Nd : YAG laser, of the flow field in a micro round tube with an internal diameter of 100 μm in order to examine micro-scale effects. Since the refractive index of the micro tube almost corresponds to that of water, the inner flow in the tube can be observed clearly. Applying the highly accurate PIV technique to the flow, the velocity distributions with spatial resolutions of 2.0×2.0 μm were measured even near the wall in the center plane of the round tube. The obtained velocities profile was similar to the theoretical values calculated using Poiseuille's law.

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The micro PIV system has been developed as a new diagnostic tool for microscale flow and applied to the measurement of microchannel flow in order to investigate the properties of electroosmotic flow. The field of view of the PIV system is 580 μm×580μm and velocity vector fields can be measured at 9.3μm vector-to-vector intervals using two-frame cross-correlation method with 32×32 pixels interrogation spot. In this study, two different types of microchips, which are developed for genetic analyses, are employed : PDMS (polymethylmethacrylate) microchip and PMMA (polydimethylsiloxane) microchip. The size of flow channel of each chip is 100 μm×30 μm. The electroosmotic flow shows flat velocity profiles independently of electric field intensity except near the side wall. The, effects of ζ-potential of tracer particles and channels on electroosmotic flow have been evaluated based on the results of ζ-potential measurements and PIV measurements.

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Scanning Thermal Microscope takes topographic and thermal images with sub-micron spatial resolution. A real temperature measurement method on the SThM has been developed by using a thermal feedback system, where a cantilever is kept same temperature as sample by generating heat proportional to heat flow along it. The micro-fabricated cantilever having thermopile, heater and thermocouple showed good performance of temperature accuracy of below ±1K, contact size of less than 30nm, and thermal response of 50Hz. It is also demonstrated that the system takes qualitative thermal images by a passive operation and quantitative temperature images by the active operation regardless of variations in the contact condition and thermal properties.

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Two visualization systems using Immersive Projection Technology (IPT) are presented. One is CABIN (Computer Augmented Booth for Image Navigation) of IML, University of Tokyo, which has five 2.5m square screens. In CABIN, a visual computing system is implemented as well as the post processing visualization system. The other is a one slanted screen system, which is located in Kawagoe campus, Tokyo University. The author's in-house post-processor runs on this system. Both systems show the advantage of the use of virtual reality (VR) technology.

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I introduce two 3D stereo viewing systems. One is for the large screen stereo system by cluster Pc system. The other one is the 3D stereo glass system that requires no power and no special CRT. It is available everywhere. The printed image can be seen in stereo by only the 3D glass. Im expecting that the system expands the 3D Viewing market.

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In this paper I introduce the concept of Visual Area Network, which provides remote usage of large-scale visualization systems and data. For constructing Visual Area Networking I propose OpenGL Vizserver server-client software, which can be used as not only visual serving systems to personal desktop systems but also collaboration systems between distanced visualization servers with VR systems.

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