The Ignite Distributed Collaborative Scientific Visualization System

Scientific Visualization systems are primarily output-oriented, Users can specify and change parameters that are controlling the visualization process, which will result in different data representations or images respectively. But no mechanism is provided to really interact with the application data (semantic interaction) that has been changed step by step by the process of visualization. In this paper general concepts are elaborated and presented to achieve semantic interaction in dataflow environments for Scientific Visualization.

An important issue in scientific visualization systems is the management of data sets. Most data sets in scientific visualization, whether created by measurement or simulation, are usually voluminous. The goal of data management is to reduce the storage space and the access time of these data sets to speed up the visualization process. A new progressive transmission scheme using spline biorthogonal wavelet bases is proposed in this paper. By exploiting the properties of this set of wavelet bases, a fast algorithm involving only additions and subtractions is developed. Due to the multiresolutional nature of the wavelet transform, this scheme is compatible with hierarchical-structured rendering algorithms. The formula for reconstructing the functional values in a continuous volume space is given in a simple polynomial form. Lossless compression is possible, even when using floating-point numbers. This algorithm has been applied to data from a global ocean model. The lossless compression ratio is about 1.5:1. With a compression ratio of 50:1, the reconstructed data is still of good quality. Several other wavelet bases are compared with the spline biorthogonal wavelet bases. Finally the reconstructed data is visualized using various algorithms and the results are demonstrated. >

Adaptive Scientific Visualization System for Desktop Computers and Mobile Devices

Five high-quality workshops were held at the 13th Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD 2009) in Bangkok, Thailand during April 27-30, 2009. There were 17, 6, 9, 4 and 5 accepted papers to be presented at the Pacific Asia Workshop on Intelligence and Security Informatics (PAISI 2009), the workshop on Advances and Issues in Biomedical Data Mining (AIBDM 2009), the workshop on Data Mining with Imbalanced Classes and Error Cost (ICEC 2009), the workshop on Open Source in Data Mining (OSDM 2009), and the workshop on Quality Issues, Measures of Interestingness and Evaluation of Data Mining Models (QIMIE 2009). One competition, PAKDD 2009 Data Mining Competition, and one local workshop, Thai Track Session, were arranged. From these workshops (except PAISI which published its works in separate LNCS proceedings), we selected two or three best papers for this LNCS publication. PAKDD is a major international conference in the areas of data mining (DM) and knowledge discovery in database (KDD). It provides an international forum for researchers and industry practitioners to share their new ideas, original research results and practical development experiences from all KDD-related areas including data mining, data warehousing, machine learning, databases, statistics, knowledge acquisition and automatic scientific discovery,data visualization, causal induction and knowledge-based systems.

Geometric structures such as points, lines, and surfaces play a vital role in scientific visualization. However, these visualizations frequently suffer from visual clutter that hinders the inspection of important features behind dense but less important features. In the past few years, geometric cluttering and occlusion avoidance has been addressed in scientific visualization with various approaches such as opacity optimization techniques. In this paper, we present a novel approach for opacity optimization based on recent state-of-the-art moment-based techniques for signal reconstruction. In contrast to truncated Fourier series, momentbased reconstructions of feature importance and optical depth along view rays are highly accurate for sparse regions but also plausible for densely covered regions. At the same time, moment-based methods do not suffer from ringing artifacts. Moreover, this representation enables fast evaluation and compact storage, which is crucial for per-pixel optimization especially for large geometric structures. We also present a fast screen space filtering approach for optimized opacities that works directly on moment buffers. This filtering approach is suitable for real-time visualization applications, while providing comparable quality to object space smoothing. Its implementation is independent of the type of geometry such that it is general and easy to integrate. We compare our technique to recent state of the art techniques for opacity optimization and apply it to real and synthetic data sets in various applications.

A coordination framework and architecture for internet groupware

This paper discusses a group coordination architecture to support Internet-wide distributed collaboration in the context of legacy Internet protocols. Group coordination in distributed systems and multimedia systems has many faces manifested in a variety of user interfaces and network protocols. To date, no standardized methodology for engineering group coordination protocols exists. We perceive coordination as the third complementary component in the trinity of group-communication services, next to membership and dissemination. With the current surge in e-commerce and Web-leveraged information exchange among users, the need for systems offering better telepresence and interaction capabilities becomes tangible. Services to support distributed group interaction at (near) real-time, with user-specified quality-of-service, and at Internet scope are of particular interest in this mosaic of telepresence and remote collaboration. We propose a general group coordination architecture for heterogeneous networks, as a framework to leverage the rapid development of group-oriented distributed collaborative applications in the Internet, for example for distance education, distributed scientific simulation or visualization, and similar applications.

The augmentation of objects by textual annotations provides a powerful means for visual data exploration. Especially in interactive scenarios, where the view on the objects and, thus, the preferred placement of annotations changes continually, efficient labeling procedures are required. As identified by a preliminary study for this paper, these procedures have to consider a number of requirements for achieving an optimal readability, e.g. cartographic principles, visual association and temporal coherence. In this paper, we present a force-based labeling algorithm for 2D and 3D scenes, which can compute the placements of annotations at very high speed and fulfills the identified requirements. The efficient labeling of several hundred annotations is achieved by computing their layout in parallel on the GPU. This allows for a real-time and collision-free arrangement of both dynamically changing and static information. We demonstrate that our method supports a large variety of applications, e.g. geographical information systems, automotive navigation systems, and scientific or information visualization systems. We conclude the paper with an expert study which confirms the enhancements brought by our algorithm with respect to visual association and readability.

Chapter 25 - A Knowledge-based Collaborative Environment for Geovisualization: Ontologies for Multiple Perspectives on Distributed Data Resources

While scientific visualization systems share many requirements with other graphical applications, they also pose special requirements that make solutions based on standard rendering hardware or software not entirely satisfactory. This paper illustrates those requirements by describing the renderer used in a production scientific visualization system, Data Explorer [1].We begin by setting forth the requirements for a visualization renderer derived from our experiences. We then describe implementation techniques used to meet the requirements of parallelism, volume rendering of irregular data, clipping, and integration of rendering modalities. The renderer described is a software renderer, but it is hoped that the requirements and implementation described here might influence the design of future generations of rendering hardware.

In this paper we will discuss a prototype visual programming environment for text applications called Eye-ConTact. Eye- ConTact is modeled on scientific visualization systems such as NAG's Explorer<SUP>TM</SUP>. The user creates a flow chart of how the 'experiment' on a text is to be conducted. The map of this flow of data allows the researcher to see the logic of the study of a text and then reproduce such studies with other texts, or alter the analysis. To adapt the visual programming model to the community of textual scholars, the program must be usable and extendable by a community with limited resources for computing, and not entirely convinced that computationally-based research is relevant. The 'keep it simple' injunction is crucial in such a project. Furthermore, there are no defined or de facto standards for data formats or data representations in this community. We will discuss the original (1997) prototype. Feedback from demonstrations led to changes to the programming interface, and the underlying text analysis engine, in order to make the former more indicative of the steps in the analysis process, and the latter more portable and extensible. We will discuss the design decisions we made to address these two issues.

This thesis explores the hypothesis that designers, as visual representation specialists, can catalyze novel moments of insight for researchers by visualizing, translating, distilling, and interpreting abstract data or models into concrete forms which allow researchers to see their data in a new way. Through four design practice studies, in four different contexts of research, I have employed what I see as the skills of a designer to assist in the exploration, testing, and definition of new knowledge. This research identifies and illuminates four pathways into a rich territory for exploration at the intersection of scientific research and recursive visualization design. I hope to show that designers can not only be external communicators of science, but be contributing members of a research team. This thesis does not aim to identify and problem and solve it, but rather to open a space of exploration. Well situated in four fields of literature, but focusing on a more practice-based approach to research through design, this thesis is an organic novel outgrowth of previous thinking. Methods and definitions of critical scientific visualization skills are elucidated, in addition to detailed descriptions of the role of design on scientific research teams.

Driven by today’s supercomputers, larger and larger sets of data are created during numerical simulations of geoscientific applications. Such data often describes instationary processes in three-dimensional domains in terms of multi-dimensional data. Due to limited computer resources, it might be impossible or unpractical to store all data created during one simulation, which is why several data reduction techniques are often applied (e.g. only every nth time-step is stored). Intuitive scientific visualization techniques can help to better understand the structures described by transient data. Adequate reconstruction techniques for the time-dimension are needed since standard techniques (e.g. linear interpolation) are insufficient for many applications. We describe a general formalism for a wide class of reconstruction techniques and address aspects of quality characteristics. We propose an approach that is able to take arbitrary physical processes into account to enhance the quality of the reconstruction. For the eruption of the volcano Eyjafjallajkull in Iceland in the spring of 2010, we describe a suitable reduced model and use it for model-based visualization. The original data was created during a COSMO-ART simulation. We discuss the reconstruction errors, related computational costs, and possible extensions. A comparison with linear interpolation clearly motivates the proposed model-based reconstruction approach.

Within the past few years, computer graphics has played a decisive role in transforming the field of molecular modeling into an international industry. While computer scientists are conversant in the language of their own discipline, they are often unfamiliar with the terminology and unique graphical constructs of physical scientists. Similarly, physical scientists are often unfamiliar with the latest paradigms and technological advances in graphical computing. The successful marriage of Chemistry and Computer Graphics is an outstanding model of technology transfer and cross-disciplinary fertilization. Drawing on chemistry visualizations performed at the Cornell Theory Center, this workshop covers some of the terminology, tools and current problems that have evolved at the boundary between these two fields.

Aging highway infrastructure requires effective rating methodologies to prioritize bridges for rehabilitation and repair. To aid engineers in decision making regarding bridge maintenance, a three-dimensional (3D) visualization system is developed for rating reinforced concrete deck-girder bridge. Color codings show the most probable mode of failure for girder cross sections under combined moment-shear forces and allow an engineer to determine a rehabilitation strategy. The visualization system relies on 3D finite-element analyses using the open source framework OpenSees, making the system readily extensible to a wide range of bridge types and loading scenarios, as well as emergent reliability-based rating methodologies. Important features of the visualization system are emphasized, including the use of lighting and feature edge detection to improve the visual quality of a bridge model. Recent developments in scientific visualization are discussed for potential application to civil engineering problems.