Visualization Systems, Software, Framework and Tools

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Visualization Systems, Software, Framework and
Tools
Day 1- Lab
Raphael Grasset
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Topics

• Visualization Software Types
• Functional/Non-Functional Requirements
• Examples of visualization software
• Exercise Paraview Tutorial

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Visualization Software

• A tool for visualizing your data
• Generally using a Data flow architecture
  (following a visualization pipeline)
• Your needs and requirements
• Functional functionalities supported by the
  software (e.g. remote rendering)
• Non-Functional constraints and qualities of the
  software (e.g. work on Mac OSX)

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Functional Requirements

• Support for different data types (structured,
  unstructured, textual, etc)
• Support for different visualization techniques
  (volume rendering, surface)
• Support of domain-dependant data (chemistry
  format, medical imaging (DICOM), etc)
• Filtering Operations clustering, segmentation,
  search, etc
• Support for different methodology (visual
  analytics)

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Functional Requirements

• Remote rendering
• Connection with external database, simulation
  (e.g. Super computer data streaming)
• Collaboration features
• Publishing features export images, web, pdf, etc.

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Non-Functional Requirements

• Run-Time
• Usability (ease of use, learnability,
  memorability, efficiency)
• Configurability
• Supportability
• Reliability
• Availability
• Performance (latency, response time)
• Scalability
• Development/Authoring
• Modifiability, Extensibility
• Reusability
• Composability

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Types of Visualization Tools

• Developer tools vs End-user tools
• Library low level programming
• Toolkit/Framework high level programming
• Scripting simple programming language
• Visual Authoring Tool visual programming
• Visualization software vs System
• Viz System Configuration Hardware Software
• Viz Software just software

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Learning Curve

• Learning curve time to learn to display what you
  want
• Flexibility how easy it is to do what you want

Learning Curve
Flexibility
Visual Authoring
Library
ToolKit
Scripting
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Ease-of-use

• Interface simple/intuitive vs complex/expert
• Also to consider
• Installation (building software)
• Configuration
• Reading documentation (format?)
• Finding support

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Open-Source vs Commercial

• Commercial
• Reliable software (no crashes)
• Performance
• Support!!
• Open-Source/LGPL/Dual Licence Type
• Flexibility, Extensibility anyone can modify it
• Great for research!
• Community support
• Performance is getting better

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Generic Visualization Software
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VTK

• Visualization ToolKit (VTK)
• http//www.vtk.org/
• OpenSource Library
• C, Tcl, Python Interface
• Professional Support by Kitware Inc
• Software Rendering
• (now support for hardware-accelerated rendering)

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ParaView

• http//www.paraview.org
• Open-Source Multi-platforms
• Build above above VTK
• More features than just a GUI
• Support distributed computing, remote rendering
• batch processing
• Scripting interface
• Largely used by the research community, for
  large-scale data visualization (e.g. Sandia
  National Laboratories)

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AVS/Express

• http//www.avs.com/software/soft_t/avsxps.html

• Commercial (AVS), Visual Authoring
• Scripting, Modular (C)
• Lot of visualization techniques supported
• Hardware/Software rendering
• Distributed rendering

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OpenDX

• Open Data Explorer http//www.opendx.org
• Open Source,
• multi-platform
• Developed by IBM
• Visual Authoring, Scripting

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SCIRun

• Developed by the University of Utah
• http//software.sci.utah.edu/scirun.html
• Lots of advanced visualization features
• Remote rendering, collaborative features

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Amira

• http//www.amiravis.com/
• Commercial (Visage Imaging), multiplatform
• Modular, lot of functionalities
• VR Support

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Deep Computing Visualization (DCV)

• http//www03.ibm.com/systems/deepcomputing/visuali
  zation/
• Commercial (IBM), WinXP/Linux
• Visualization system
• Dedicated to visualization using large-scale data
  (Deep Computing, Blue Gene)
• Scalable, Remote, Cluster Rendering

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Others

• Iris Explorer
• http//www.nag.co.uk/welcome_iec.asp
• Commercial (NAG) , multiplatform(Licensed by
  SGI)
• Vis5D
• http//vis5d.sourceforge.net/
• Open-source
• MayaVi2
• http//code.enthought.com/projects/mayavi/
• Built on VTK

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Popularity

• Google hits
• VTK 1,060,000
• Paraview 336,000
• AVS/Express283,000
• OpenDX 7,700
• Amira 22,300
• Vis5d 21,600
• SCIRun 15,700
• IRIS Explorer 15900

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Specialized VisualizationSoftware
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VMD

• Visual Molecular Dynamics
• http//www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
• Open-Source, multiplatform
• Modular, extensible (C, python, tcl)
• Cluster rendering, GPU computing, stereo view
• Integration with molecular dynamics (NAMD)

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ArcView/ArcGIS

• GIS Visualization
• Commercial (ESRI), Windows XP
• Different Tools view, editor, reader, etc
• Visual Analytic
• ArcGIS Explorer

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Information Visualization

• Tableau
• http//www.tableausoftware.com
• Commercial (free trial), Visual GUI
• Prefuse
• http//www.prefuse.org/
• Library (java, flash)
• ManyEyes
• http//many-eyes.com
• IBM, online

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Non Traditional Visualization Softwareor
Alternative Approaches
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Second Life

• Free (except persistency of data)
• Visual Authoring Tool
• Usage
• GIS
• InfoViz
• Chemistry Viz
• E-Learning
• Limitations
• Low geometry

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Google Earth

• Free (non-commercial)
• Collaborative Visualization (sharing and
  disseminating data)
• GIS but now
• Science
• Astronomy
• Business, Finance
• Demography
• etc,.
• KML File Format
• Easy to use, simple syntax

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Conclusion

• There are lots of visualization solutions
• Functional vs Non-Functional Requirements
• (features vs support, open-source)
• Think about alternatives solutions for
  dissemination