About OpenSpace

OpenSpace is open-source software that aims to visualize the entire known universe in accurate three-dimensional space. It is mature science visualization software that can be used by anyone to tell stories about the cosmos and our place in it.

The Project

One feature currently lacking in OpenSpace is the ability to visualize black holes. Doing this interactively is not trivial but has been done recently in a research paper. The goal of this thesis is to use the methods mentioned in this paper and implement a similar black hole visualization within OpenSpace. The focus of the project will be to make the visualization interactable so users will be able to fly around the black hole freely.

The gravitational pull of black holes is so extreme that when light passes by, its path is bent. This makes the process of visualizing a black hole similar to ray-tracing, except in this case the rays no longer travel in straight paths but bend along the way depending on the gravitational pull and the spin of the black hole. Since ray-tracing is already a difficult task in real-time, this project will focus heavily on efficiency and speed. Computations will have to be done on the GPU to strive for a visualization that can be viewed interactively.

Useful courses for this project are Advanced Global Illumination and Rendering, Data Structures, Multicore and GPU Programming, Scientific Visualization, all C++ courses, all computer graphics courses, and of course all the math and physics courses.

Useful links

• Black Hole Visualization Paper

Application

Please send an email indicating your interest for this or other thesis works to emma.broman@liu.se including your CV/LinkedIn and a Ladok transcript of courses. Also include an explanation of why you are interested in this specific project. If you are already a pair wanting to work on the thesis together or you are interested in multiple thesis works, a single email will suffice.

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

OBS! This project has been assigned and is no longer open for applications.