Modeling The World

The biggest names in supercomputing have been brought together at modelingtheworld.com.

The highest-power computational efforts on the planet are working to solve science’s hardest problems, from protein folding and gene sequencing to climate modeling and quantum physics. Stimulant helped Microsoft Technical Computing illustrate their commitment to these cutting-edge efforts with an equally cutting-edge website.

ModelingTheWorld.com is a Silverlight-based website that features interactive HD videos of some of the most respected luminaries in the supercomputing field today. 15 are available now, with more throughout the year, and each has a rich array of time-synchronized “extras” that add context to the interviewees’ statements or link to other related videos. Synchronized transcripts enable captioning and non-linear navigation.

High performance computing comes alive through the stories of its own leaders.

Stimulant designed an entirely procedural layout engine to display all of the videos, reinforced by an intelligent particle system, to evoke a complex system of many elements that form a greater whole. The system features parameters such as gravity, attraction, and elasticity that allowed design and development team members to interactively dial in the look and feel. Subtle controls also exist for featuring some videos more than others. Particles swarm to videos the user is interested in. If the user wishes to browse in a more ordered way, such as by name or tag, all the elements intelligently make room for additional interface elements as they appear.

Stimulant’s deep background in digital media also allowed us to help art direct the look of all the interviews, to ensure that the emotional tone of the videos matched the exploration and playback environments. A richly interactive video experience is offered once a video is selected for viewing, built upon our past successes for Microsoft Research’s Project Tuva. Silverlight Smooth Streaming video automatically provides the right quality level for the user’s bandwidth, immediately and in real time.

ModelingTheWorld.com is a testament to Microsoft’s commitment to advancing the state of computing on a massive scale, and reaffirms Stimulant’s not-so-secret mission to use technology to tell stories in new and engaging ways.