Study of visualizations for n-body stellar models

The visualization of large datasets is invaluable to the advancement of scientific knowledge. N-Body problems produced large dataset that present several challenges to visualization. These challenges include over-plotting and self-obscuring data. Using the general visualization framework, Spiegel, five different visualization techniques are explored to solve these problems: slicing, projection, 3D projection, 3D density shells, and direct volume rendering. Each visualization looks to solve the problem in a slightly different manner while all have kernel density estimation as their starting point. While none of the visualization is ground breaking or perfectly solves the problems they do provide new insight allowing for new knowledge of the data being studied

Error sentinel: A Rule-based spreadsheet program for intelligent data entry, error correction, and curation

Within the biological sciences, spreadsheets are commonly used as a data entry and storage medium. While this practice is simple and generally well understood, the unrestrained flexibility of the spreadsheet medium allows errors to accumulate and potentially propagate. Such errors impede accurate analysis, hindering research. The underlying problem is that the error correction facilities of typical spreadsheet programs are lackluster at best, if they exist at all. For this reason, Error Sentinel was developed. Error Sentinel is a spreadsheet program with programmable error correction facilities. These facilities allow users to define exactly what clean data is, along with corrections for erroneous data. Such rules are specified via a custom visual programming language. Once error correction rules are written, users inputting data need not be familiar with the rules or even have programming skills in order to utilize them. Error Sentinel can be used interactively like a typical spreadsheet program, or non-interactively as with more traditional error correction techniques. To test Error Sentinel\u27s real-world capabilities, it was successfully applied to the correction of the mtHaplogroups data set. This application has shown that Error Sentinel requires far less time and code to perform error correction than with previous methods. Benchmarking has shown that such gains are at only a modest cost in performance. While Error Sentinel appears quite simplistic compared to typical spreadsheet programs, its error correction facilities are robust, and it is fully capable of being applied to arbitrary data sets represented in the spreadsheet medium

Spiegel - a visualization framework for large and small scale systems

Abstract. Visualization systems allow the visualization of n-dimensional data. In order to do so, the systems read the data, then convert the data into a phase space, and finally visualize the phase space. This paper discusses a visualization framework, which allows the creation of visualization systems ranging from visualizing the behavior of atoms under the influence of temperature to colliding galaxies and the spread of the plague in 1347 A.D. in Europe. The visualization framework which we present is extensible, which means a user can easily add new components to the framework and create visualization systems that could not be anticipated at present time. The paper will give an overview of the framework, and will be focusing on the graphical programming environment and the extensibility of it. The last part of the paper will focus on how a simulation system can interact with the visualization, and for example inform the visualization system of interesting events. Key words:: Visualization frame work, pipeline architecture, dense stellar systems