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VisKo: Enabling Visualization Generation Over the Web

Nicholas Del Rio – UTEPPaulo Pinheiro - PNNL

http://trust.utep.edu/visko

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Sharing Visualizations Over the Web

1. Send image (contents or by URL)

2. Send data

Recipient may be unable to adjust any properties such as contour interval, color tables, projection

and labels

Recipient may not have tools, capabilities, and expertise to regenerate visualization from data

3. Send URL of visualization embedded in viewer

These solutions have been implemented only for specific domains , for example OGC

VisKo queries address the limitations above

4. Send a VisKo Query specifying the visualization

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Running a QueryGenerating a 3D surface plot of color intensities:1. Navigate to the VisKo homepage: http://trust.utep.edu/visko/2. Click on “Network” located in the navigation bar3. Click on the UTEP server node: http://iw.cs.utep.edu/visko-web4. Click on “Query Examples” in the navigation bar5. Click on “NASA Goddard MODIS Brightness Visualization Queries” in the examples list6. Find the example query for “Contour Map Query”7. Copy the associated query and paste it in the query submission box in the “Server Home” page8. You should get 3 pipeline results . Click “Run Pipeline” in the “Run” column of any pipeline you wish9. After execution, you should be presented with a 2D contour map of brightness temperature data.

Changing Parameters10. Hit the back button on your browser from the image11. Click “edit parameters” on any pipeline12. Set “cnLevelSpacingF” = “10” and “cnFillOn” = “False”13. Click “Submit” below to generate your plot without wireframes14. You can export by clicking on “Click to Export Query” and share the query with the new parameter settings

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Discussion Points

• How often do you share visualizations?

• What approach do you take when sharing?

• Would you publish visualization queries along side static images on your Web pages?

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Enhancing Usage of Preferred Toolkits

VisKo

Users may also get other visualizations of the same dataset, generated by different registered toolkits

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Running a Wildcard Query (*)Executing a wildcard query:1. Navigate to the UTEP server node: http://iw.cs.utep.edu/visko-web2. Click on “Query Examples” in the navigation bar3. Click on “Gravity Data Visualization Queries” in the examples list4. Find the first example query “All Possible Visualizations: (AS *)”5. Copy the associated query and paste it in the query submission box in the “Server Home” page6. You should get 46 results back7. Notice the columns “View” and “View Based On” which presents the visualization the pipeline generates

and the toolkit that supports generation of that visualization

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Discussion Points

• Does your current toolkit of choice support all your needs?

• Are you happy with the documentation provided by toolkits?

• Would you be willing to use other toolkit visualizations if you could easily generate them?

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Supporting Hybrid PipelinesCustom Code: column filter

GMT: surface

NCL: gsn_csm_contour_map

GS: ps2pdf

Combing the best of both worlds: GMT’s gridding techniques with NCL’s high quality contour map generation

Purple Nodes Data Transformers

Yellow Node Visualization Mapper

White Node Viewer

VISUALIZE http://data.txtAS contour-map IN firefoxWHERE FORMAT = SSV TYPE = d19 (gravity data)

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Browsing Hybrid PipelinesGenerating surface plots from FITS data:1. Navigate to the UTEP server node: http://iw.cs.utep.edu/visko-web2. Click on “Query Examples” in the navigation bar3. Click on “NASA JPL Solar Image Processing Queries” in the examples list4. Find the example query “3D Surface Plot of Solar FITS”5. Copy the associated query and paste it in the query submission box in the “Server Home” page6. You should get 1 result back7. Notice the column “Description” which allows you to browse the pipeline result in “Text” or “Graph”

mode. 8. Click on “Text” for a more detailed description and “Graph” for a visualization of the pipeline, including

parameters9. If you click on “Text”, you notice that the first operator is supported by ImageMagick and the second

operator supported by ImageJ

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Discussion Points

• Have your ran into instances when a single toolkit did not provide all the capabilities you needed?

• Have you ever had to integrate different libraries to achieve a single visualization task?

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Help the Operator Graph Grow!

Purple Nodes Data Transformers

Yellow Nodes Visualization Mapper

White Nodes Viewers

Snap shot of our current service knowledge base

Pipeline from slide (4) found above

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Browsing the Knowledge BaseGenerating surface plots from FITS data:1. Navigate to the UTEP server node: http://iw.cs.utep.edu/visko-web2. Click on “Knowledge Base” in the navigation bar3. On this page, you will find three visualizations of the knowledge base based on different perspectives: (1)

number of ontology instances, (2) data transformation paths, and (3) operator pipelines4. Scroll to the bottom of the page to browse the operator pipelines.5. FYI, there is a visualization query behind these graphs, i.e., VisKo visualized its own knowledge base

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Discussion Points

• The number of nodes is small compared to the number of toolkit operators out there: 200+ VTK, 100+ NCL, 60+ GMT, and custom code.

• The number of pipelines would be considerable if we registered more operators, especially considering inter combinations.

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Community Participation:Registering /Services through Packages

VisKo

Jmol services are now registered with VisKo (i.e., registration)

VisKo will now consider Jmol services when answering queries (i.e., service discovery)

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Browsing VisKo PackagesChecking what packages are installed:1. Navigate to the VisKo homepage: http://trust.utep.edu/visko/2. Click on “Network” located in the navigation bar3. Scroll down to the “Available Packages” table4. The table presents the toolkit vendor the package is based on (if any), a link to view the package “Details”,

and links to the “Java” code implementing the package.5. Click on any package “Details” to see a listing of registered Toolkits, ViewerSets, and Services6. Click on any package “Implementation” to see the package Java code stored on GitHub

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Discussion Points

• Have you ever developed custom visualization code that could be shared with a larger community?

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EXTRAS

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Data Transformation Paths

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Query Submission

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Query Results

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Pipeline Description