Visualization across the pond: how a wireless PDA can collaborate with million-polygon datasets via 9,000km of cable

ABSTRACT

We present an initial report on using our distributed, collaborative grid enabled visualization environment to link SuperComputing 2004 (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) with the Cardiff School of Computer Science (Cardiff, Wales, UK). A PDA was used to visualize large, shared datasets (in the range of 0.5--4.5 million polygons) stored in Cardiff, interacting with a laptop (rendering the data locally). The system used was the Resource-Aware Visualization Environment (RAVE), deployed as Web Services running in the background on remote machines. This enables us to use a wide range of heterogeneous machines without being concerned with the underlying implementation of RAVE, or the architecture of the machine.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.4 Distributed Systems

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Collaborative computing; Computer-supported cooperative work

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.2 Graphics Systems
          Subjects: Distributed/network graphics

Keywords:
grid/web, heterogeneous systems, services, visualization