NERSC-ALS Superfacility Enables Real-Time 3D X-ray Imaging

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (NERSC) and the Advanced Light Source (ALS) announced deployment of a Superfacility real-time data streaming pipeline connecting ALS Beamline 8.3.2 to NERSC via ESnet, enabling near-instant 3D micro-CT reconstructions during experiments.

• Main announcement/action: The project implements real-time streaming from ALS to NERSC (via ESnet) so micro-CT datasets (often 50 GB+) are reconstructed on NERSC using multiple high-powered GPUs with results available in less than 10 seconds; this capability is the result of a two-year collaborative project involving 30+ contributors and is now in daily production use. The pipeline was developed through NERSC’s NESAP program and integrated by ALS Beamline Controls, Photon Science Computing, and Berkeley Lab IT.
• Background and details: The effort built on shared code from APS/Argonne, included updates to beamline data-acquisition software/hardware, and was first demonstrated in production with the Saad Bhamla Lab (Georgia Tech). The team plans to expand the framework to support ptychographic imaging and to combine the pipeline with AI/ML tools for automated image segmentation and analysis.