Hybrid Scheduling in the DeVIDE Dataflow Visualisation Environment

Abstract

Dataflow application builders such as AVS, OpenDX and MeVisLab are popular and effective tools for the rapid prototyping of visualisation algorithms. They enable re- searchers to build applications by graphically connecting functional modules together to form a network. A usually hidden yet important aspect of these tools is the schedul- ing of network execution: Most of these environments can be classified as employ- ing event-driven or demand-driven scheduling. The scheduling strategy has important implications for the component developer. In this paper, we present our recently open- sourced dataflow application builder, called DeVIDE, for the rapid prototyping ofmed- ical visualisation and image processing techniques. Apart from the unique interaction possibilities and ease of integration that it offers, DeVIDE differentiates itself from similar environments by implementing a hybrid scheduling approach that adaptively applies demand- and event-driven scheduling to a single network. In this way, ease of component development and execution efficiency can be combined.