Session VII:Enabling Integrated Analysis

From VOiG

1 Introduction
2 Time and Location
3 Presenters
4 Forum
- 4.1 Presentation Images
5 Presentation Materials

[edit] Introduction

Enabling Integrated Analysis using Standardized, Measurement-Based Data Interfaces

Jon Vandegriff(1), Robert Candey(2), Jan Merka(3), Daniel Morrison(1), Tom Narock(3), Adam Szabo(2), James Thieman(2)

1-JHU/APL, 2-NASA/GSFC, 3-Univ Maryland Baltimore County

Abstract

The goal of Virtual Observatories is to allow seamless analysis of diverse and distributed resources. In the Heliophysical science domain, the challenge of how to find distributed data resources is being addressed by discipline-specific VOs. However, most VOs are not focusing on analysis tasks such as visualization and data unification. We discuss an approach to data integration where each type of science measurement is described by a software interface, which we call a data interface. Each interface is just an API that captures the essence of one science measurement type. The API contains only measurement-related information and hides all access details. Tools for data integration, visualization and analysis are built on top of the common interfaces. Then a dataset can be made available in the integrated analysis tools by simply providing an implementation of the appropriate data (i.e., measurement-specific) interface. Because the key to such an approach is defining suitable interfaces that can abstract just the right level of detail from each measurement, engagement with the Heliophysics community is essential for input and feedback concerning these standardized measurement abstractions. Finally, the best deployment strategy for such a system is to make available a client-side library providing not only the standardized data interfaces, but also a host of implementations for accessing many different datasets. This approach has worked well for time series data types such as magnetic field data, plasma data, and even more complex energetic particle data. Ideas about integrating a data interface-based analysis mechanism with the emerging Heliophsyical VOs will be discussed.