VisIVO–Integrated Tools and Services for Large-Scale Astrophysical Visualization

Abstract

VisIVO is an integrated suite of tools and services specifically designed for the Virtual Observatory. This suite constitutes a software framework for effective visual discovery in currently available (and nextgeneration) very large-scale astrophysical data sets. VisIVO consists of VisiVO Desktop, a stand alone application for interactive visualization on standard PCs; VisIVO Server, a grid-enabled platform for high performance visualization; and VisIVO Web, a custom designed web portal supporting services based on the VisIVO Server functionality. The main characteristic of VisIVO is support for high-performance, multidimensional visualization of very large-scale astrophysical data sets. Users can obtain meaningful visualizations rapidly while preserving full and intuitive control of the relevant visualization parameters. This paper focuses on newly developed integrated tools in VisIVO Server allowing intuitive visual discovery with three-dimensional (3D) views being created from data tables. VisIVO Server can be installed easily on any web server with a database repository. We discuss briefly aspects of our implementation of VisiVO Server on a computational grid and also outline the functionality of the services offered by VisIVO Web. Finally we conclude with a summary of our work and pointers to future developments. © 2009. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific. AU rights reserved.