Distance Visualization: Data Exploration on the Grid

Scientific visualization has emerged as an important tool for extracting meaning from the large volumes of data produced by scientific instruments and simulations. Increasingly, the visualization process must deal with data sources, end users, analysis devices, and visualization devices that are geographically distributed. Such distance visualization scenarios introduce new challenges: for example, security, wide area networks, heterogeneity, and unreliable components. In this article, we explain how new approaches to visualization architecture can allow us to address these challenges in a principled fashion. In particular, we emphasize how infrastructure being developed for emerging national-scale computational "Grids" can be leveraged to both simplify and enhance the robustness, performance, and portability of distance visualization systems. We illustrate this discussion by reference to a substantial distance visualization application: a system for the collaborative, onlin...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 1999
• Where: COMPUTER
• Authors: Ian T. Foster, Joseph A. Insley, Gregor von Laszewski, Carl Kesselman, Marcus Thiébaux
• Keywords: COMPUTER 1999, Distance Visualization, Distance Visualization Scenarios, Scientific Visualization