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I used Paraview to visualize the brain model that display brain activity due to memory recollection from fMRI data in VR. In the class activity, we found it was easier for to learn about memory mappings in brain in VR. The learning curve is low and the inferences were easier to make.

Applications and Takeaways

This semester I explored visualizing fMRI data in VR environment.

What is fMRI data?- fMRI stands for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.This technique detects brain activity by measuring changes that are associated with blood flow.When a part of the brain is being used, more blood is flowing to that area, meaning more neurons are activated.

Drawing inferences from 2D fMRI data can seem daunting and tedious but 3D VR environment can alleviate these problems by providing in-depth navigation of the brain data and also enabling remote collaboration with other experts.

What is Observability in software systems? Observability is the process of having good analytics dashboard of all critical metrics of software systems available with digestible graphs and plots. Observability in big distributed service is hard. Multiple screens + monitors help engineers to keep track of metrics in real time to monitor critical spikes and events in big distributed systems. Triggers help but going through visualization on multiple monitors is hard to track. VR is far easier to setup for data visualization with virtual infinite visual surface area with no additional cost of hardware or space setup needed.