A new Visualisation Laboratory (VisLab) has been launched at La Trobe University in Victoria, providing sophisticated visualisation technology that will allow researchers to run experiments remotely.

 

VisLab will link to the Australian Synchrotron and other local and international facilities, including those with existing La Trobe remote stations. It will link to analytical equipment at Berlin's BESSY Synchrotron, the Canadian Light Source at Saskatoon and Chicago's Argonne Advanced Photon Source machine. Within VisLab from their remote location, researchers are able to drive the instrument and perform experiments themselves. Alternately they can collaborate in real time with another team of researchers present at the instrument

 

VisLab also doubles as a classroom, promoting and teaching science and technology to high-school and university students.

 

VisLab was funded through the Victorian Government’s Victorian eResearch Strategic Initiative (VeRSI). New funding of $2 million for the initiative has allowed VeRSI's membership to expand to include all of Victoria's eight universities, as well as the Australian Synchrotron and the Victorian Government Department for Primary Industries.

 

VisLab is a collaboration between the La Trobe eResearch Office, the Centre for Materials and Surface Science at La Trobe University and VeRSI.