The High Performance Computing Collaboratory (HPC2) at Mississippi State University held a Grand Opening Ceremony for the new VERTEX (Virtual Environment for Real-Time EXploration) facility at 10am, on Thursday, April 3, 2008, in Room 30 of the HPC Building located in the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park across Highway 182 from the main MSU campus. After a brief welcome by Dr. Kirk Schulz, MSU VP for Research and Economic Development, and a brief summary of the environment by Dr. Robert Moorhead, Deputy Director of the GeoResources Institute, demonstrations in the VERTEX were offered from 10:20am to 12:30pm.

The new VERTEX facility provides the ability to create any type of virtual environment. Software that has been developed in the past, or that is expected to be developed, will allow in-depth studies in various fields such as hurricane models, forest management, architecture models, vehicular models, and airplane, rocket, and submarine development. This will open doors of collaboration with different departments on campus, as well as potential relationships with any group looking to get a closer look into their field of study, whether it is a veterinarian student getting a closer look at the inner workings of an animal, or an MSU football player improving his game - the possibilities are endless.

Also with the increased availability of virtual environment locations, the ability to interact remotely in real time will become more practicable. Researchers in different virtual environments at different locations will be able to share the same virtual experience of studying the same storm pattern or the same airplane simulation.

The new VERTEX facility is located at the High Performance Computing Collaboratory at MSU. The HPC2 is a coalition of member centers and groups that share a common core objective to advance the state-of-the-art in computational science and engineering using high performance computing.