Netherlands Astronomy Conference 2026

VR viewing and analysis of multidimensional data

12 May 2026, 13:30

15m

Lamoraalzaal (Hotel Zuiderduin)

Contributed Talk Data science & Opportunities of LLM’s for Astronomical research Splinter: Data science & Opportunities of LLM’s for Astronomical research

Speaker

Thijs van der Hulst (Kapteyn Astronomical Institute)

Description

iDaVIE (immersive Data Visualisation Interactive Explorer) is a software tool developed at IDIA (Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy) in Cape Town (https://idavie.readthedocs.io/en/v1.1/). It allows viewing, manipulation and analysis of 3D data in a Virtual Reality setting where one is immersed in the 3D data environment.

There are two versions of iDaVIE. iDAVIE-v allows viewing of 3D spectral line data cubes, such as HI data cubes, ALMA data cubes for molecular lines, or optical data cubes produced by IFU systems such as WEAVE on the WHT or MUSE on the VLT. iDaVIE-p allows viewing of catalogues or tables. These could be redshift survey catalogues, cosmological simulations, or any table containing at least three columns.

I will give an overview of the capabilities of both versions of iDaVIE and demonstrate the power of VR viewing of 3D or higher dimensional data and briefly summarise the hardware required to run iDaVIE.