A Survey of Visualization Pipelines

The most common abstraction used by visualization libraries and applications today is what is known as the visualization pipeline. The visualization pipeline provides a mechanism to encapsulate algorithms and then couple them together in a variety of ways. The visualization pipeline has been in existence for over 20 years, and over this time many variations and improvements have been proposed. This paper provides a literature review of the most prevalent features of visualization pipelines and some of the most recent research directions.

[1]  Gaël Varoquaux,et al.  Mayavi: 3D Visualization of Scientific Data , 2010, Computing in Science & Engineering.

[2]  Charles D. Hansen,et al.  Interactive Simulation and Visualization , 1999, Computer.

[3]  Daniel D. Hils,et al.  Datavis: a visual programming language for scientific visualization , 1991, CSC '91.

[4]  Dennis Koelma,et al.  A visual programming interface for an image processing environment , 1994, Pattern Recognit. Lett..

[5]  Juliana Freire,et al.  VisComplete: Automating Suggestions for Visualization Pipelines , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[6]  James P. Ahrens,et al.  PISTON: A Portable Cross-Platform Framework for Data-Parallel Visualization Operators , 2012, EGPGV@Eurographics.

[7]  Kenneth Moreland,et al.  Large scale visualization on the Cray XT3 using ParaView. , 2008 .

[8]  Paul Mackerras,et al.  Data shaders , 1993, Proceedings Visualization '93.

[9]  S. Dosanjh,et al.  Architectures and Technology for Extreme Scale Computing Report from the Workshop Node Architecture and Power Reduction Strategies , 2011 .

[10]  Lloyd Treinish,et al.  An extended data-flow architecture for data analysis and visualization , 1995, COMG.

[11]  Robert Ross,et al.  Visualization and parallel I/O at extreme scale , 2008, Journal of Physics: Conference Series.

[12]  David Ellsworth,et al.  Application-controlled demand paging for out-of-core visualization , 1997, Proceedings. Visualization '97 (Cat. No. 97CB36155).

[13]  Michael Kass,et al.  CONDOR: constraint-based dataflow , 1992, SIGGRAPH.

[14]  Kesheng Wu,et al.  Scientific Discovery at the Exascale , 2011 .

[15]  William J. Schroeder,et al.  A multi-threaded streaming pipeline architecture for large structured data sets , 1999, Proceedings Visualization '99 (Cat. No.99CB37067).

[16]  Lee M. Brooks,et al.  A Picture is Worth a Thousand Lines of Code , 2000 .

[17]  Roger Crawfis,et al.  A scientific visualization synthesizer , 1991, Proceeding Visualization '91.

[18]  Valerio Pascucci,et al.  Streaming‐Enabled Parallel Dataflow Architecture for Multicore Systems , 2010, Comput. Graph. Forum.

[19]  Robert L. Cook,et al.  Shade trees , 1984, SIGGRAPH.

[20]  Michelle Miller,et al.  Simulation Steering with SCIRun in a Distributed Memory Environment , 1998 .

[21]  Michelle Miller,et al.  Simulation Steering with SCIRun in a Distributed Environment , 1998, PARA.

[22]  Cláudio T. Silva,et al.  Interactive out-of-core isosurface extraction , 1998, Proceedings Visualization '98 (Cat. No.98CB36276).

[23]  Cláudio T. Silva,et al.  Using Provenance to Support Real-Time Collaborative Design of Workflows , 2008, IPAW.

[24]  Analysis of fragmentation in shock physics simulation , 2008, 2008 Workshop on Ultrascale Visualization.

[25]  Osman Ratib,et al.  OsiriX: An Open-Source Software for Navigating in Multidimensional DICOM Images , 2004, Journal of Digital Imaging.

[26]  Jeffrey Scott Vitter,et al.  External memory algorithms and data structures: dealing with massive data , 2001, CSUR.

[27]  Kenneth Moreland,et al.  Parallel unstructured volume rendering in ParaView , 2007, Electronic Imaging.

[28]  Ken Perlin,et al.  An image synthesizer , 1988 .

[29]  Paul E. Haeberli,et al.  ConMan: a visual programming language for interactive graphics , 1988, SIGGRAPH.

[30]  James P. Ahrens,et al.  A modular extensible visualization system architecture for culled prioritized data streaming , 2007, Electronic Imaging.

[31]  Kwan-Liu Ma,et al.  Multi-GPU volume rendering using MapReduce , 2010, HPDC '10.

[32]  Robert Latham,et al.  End-to-End Study of Parallel Volume Rendering on the IBM Blue Gene/P , 2009, 2009 International Conference on Parallel Processing.

[33]  C.R. Johnson,et al.  SCIRun: A Scientific Programming Environment for Computational Steering , 1995, Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM SC95 Conference.

[34]  Cláudio T. Silva,et al.  Querying and Creating Visualizations by Analogy , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[35]  Eric Darve,et al.  Liszt: A domain specific language for building portable mesh-based PDE solvers , 2011, 2011 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC).

[36]  Ron Kikinis,et al.  3D Slicer , 2012, 2004 2nd IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging: Nano to Macro (IEEE Cat No. 04EX821).

[37]  John Shalf,et al.  Query-driven visualization of large data sets , 2005, VIS 05. IEEE Visualization, 2005..

[38]  Kwan-Liu Ma,et al.  Dax Toolkit: A proposed framework for data analysis and visualization at Extreme Scale , 2011, 2011 IEEE Symposium on Large Data Analysis and Visualization.

[39]  Gunther H. Weber,et al.  Scalable computation of streamlines on very large datasets , 2009, Proceedings of the Conference on High Performance Computing Networking, Storage and Analysis.

[40]  Huy T. Vo,et al.  Designing a Parallel Dataflow Architecture for Streaming Large-Scale Visualization on Heterogeneous Platforms , 2011 .

[41]  William J. Schroeder,et al.  A Parallel Approach for Efficiently Visualizing Extremely Large, Time-Varying Datasets , 2000 .

[42]  Utkarsh Ayachit,et al.  The ParaView Guide: A Parallel Visualization Application , 2015 .

[43]  James P. Ahrens,et al.  Scout: a data-parallel programming language for graphics processors , 2007, Parallel Comput..

[44]  Michael E. Papka,et al.  Large-Scale Data Visualization Using Parallel Data Streaming , 2001, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[45]  E. Wes Bethel,et al.  Hybrid Parallelism for Volume Rendering on Large-, Multi-, and Many-Core Systems , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[46]  Aidong Lu,et al.  Visualizing Temporal Patterns in Large Multivariate Data using Textual Pattern Matching , 2008 .

[47]  Chris Henze,et al.  Large field visualization with demand-driven calculation , 1999, Proceedings Visualization '99 (Cat. No.99CB37067).

[48]  David Ellsworth,et al.  Concurrent Visualization in a Production Supercomputing Environment , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[49]  Henry Fuchs,et al.  A sorting classification of parallel rendering , 1994, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[50]  Hank Childs.  Architectural challenges and solutions for petascale postprocessing , 2007 .

[51]  Simon Ameer-Beg,et al.  Biomedical Imaging: From Nano to Macro , 2008 .

[52]  Arie Shoshani,et al.  Analyses of multi-level and multi-component compressed bitmap indexes , 2010, TODS.

[53]  P. Colella,et al.  Local adaptive mesh refinement for shock hydrodynamics , 1989 .

[54]  William E. Lorensen,et al.  VISAGE: an object-oriented scientific visualization system , 1992, Proceedings Visualization '92.

[55]  John Biddiscombe,et al.  Parallel computational steering and analysis for HPC applications using a paraview interface and the HDF5 DSM virtual file driver , 2011, EGPGV '11.

[56]  Sanjay Ghemawat,et al.  MapReduce: Simplified Data Processing on Large Clusters , 2004, OSDI.

[57]  Michael Gertz,et al.  A model for the visualization exploration process , 2002, IEEE Visualization, 2002. VIS 2002..

[58]  Kenneth I. Joy,et al.  Streamline Integration Using MPI-Hybrid Parallelism on a Large Multicore Architecture , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[59]  Kenneth Moreland,et al.  Scalable Rendering on PC Clusters , 2000, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[60]  Arie Shoshani,et al.  In situ data processing for extreme-scale computing , 2011 .

[61]  David H. Laidlaw,et al.  The application visualization system: a computational environment for scientific visualization , 1989, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[62]  Mathew Maltrud,et al.  Interactive remote large-scale data visualization via prioritized multi-resolution streaming , 2009, UltraVis '09.

[63]  Carla S. Williams,et al.  A visual language for image processing , 1990, Proceedings of the 1990 IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages.

[64]  Valerio Pascucci,et al.  Parallel visualization on large clusters using MapReduce , 2011, 2011 IEEE Symposium on Large Data Analysis and Visualization.

[65]  Kevin P. McAuliffe,et al.  An architecture for a scientific visualization system , 1992, Proceedings Visualization '92.

[66]  William Schroeder,et al.  The Visualization Toolkit: An Object-Oriented Approach to 3-D Graphics , 1997 .

[67]  Steve Bryson,et al.  FEL: the Field Encapsulation Library , 1996, Proceedings of Seventh Annual IEEE Visualization '96.

[68]  Scott Klasky,et al.  Examples of in transit visualization , 2011, PDAC '11.

[69]  David Foulser,et al.  IRIS Explorer: a framework for investigation , 1995, COMG.

[70]  Nelson L. Max,et al.  A contract based system for large data visualization , 2005, VIS 05. IEEE Visualization, 2005..

[71]  Robert M. O'Bara,et al.  Methods and framework for visualizing higher-order finite elements , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[72]  David Pugmire,et al.  Parallel Visualization and Analysis with ParaView on a Cray XT4 , 2009 .

[73]  Ravi Kumar,et al.  Pig latin: a not-so-foreign language for data processing , 2008, SIGMOD Conference.

[74]  Robert B. Ross,et al.  End-to-End Study of Parallel Volume Rendering on the IBM Blue Gene/P , 2008, 2009 International Conference on Parallel Processing.

[75]  D. Scott Dyer,et al.  A dataflow toolkit for visualization , 1990, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[76]  Varpu Marjomäki,et al.  BioImageXD - Free Microscopy Image Processing Software , 2008 .

[77]  Kenneth Moreland,et al.  Sandia National Laboratories , 2000 .

[78]  Kenneth Moreland,et al.  From cluster to wall with VTK , 2003, IEEE Symposium on Parallel and Large-Data Visualization and Graphics, 2003. PVG 2003..

[79]  Franck Cappello,et al.  MPI versus MPI+OpenMP on the IBM SP for the NAS Benchmarks , 2000, ACM/IEEE SC 2000 Conference (SC'00).

[80]  Nathan Bell,et al.  Thrust: A Productivity-Oriented Library for CUDA , 2012 .

[81]  John Shalf,et al.  The International Exascale Software Project roadmap , 2011, Int. J. High Perform. Comput. Appl..

[82]  Sean Ahern,et al.  Parallel Analysis and Visualization on Cray Compute Node Linux , 2008 .

[83]  Michael Isard,et al.  Distributed data-parallel computing using a high-level programming language , 2009, SIGMOD Conference.

[84]  Ken Martin,et al.  Time Dependent Processing in a Parallel Pipeline Architecture , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[85]  Prabhat,et al.  Extreme Scaling of Production Visualization Software on Diverse Architectures , 2010, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[86]  Prabhat,et al.  FastBit: interactively searching massive data , 2009 .

[87]  Turner Whitted,et al.  Building block shaders , 1990, SIGGRAPH.

[88]  Cláudio T. Silva,et al.  Provenance for Visualizations: Reproducibility and Beyond , 2007, Computing in Science & Engineering.

[89]  Margaret H. Wright,et al.  The opportunities and challenges of exascale computing , 2010 .

[90]  Cláudio T. Silva,et al.  VisTrails: enabling interactive multiple-view visualizations , 2005, VIS 05. IEEE Visualization, 2005..

[91]  William E. Lorensen,et al.  Marching cubes: A high resolution 3D surface construction algorithm , 1987, SIGGRAPH.

[92]  Kenneth I. Joy,et al.  Query-Driven Visualization of Time-Varying Adaptive Mesh Refinement Data , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[93]  Hans Hagen,et al.  High performance multivariate visual data exploration for extremely large data , 2008, 2008 SC - International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis.

[94]  D. A. Duce,et al.  Visualization in Scientific Computing , 1994, Focus on Computer Graphics.

[95]  Jian Huang,et al.  Distribution-Driven Visualization of Volume Data , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[96]  Wen-mei W. Hwu,et al.  GPU Computing Gems Jade Edition , 2011 .

[97]  Robert Sisneros,et al.  A distributed data-parallel framework for analysis and visualization algorithm development , 2012, GPGPU-5.

[98]  Jian Huang,et al.  Visualizing Temporal Patterns in Large Multivariate Data using Modified Globbing , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[99]  Li Chen,et al.  Optimization Strategies Using Hybrid MPI+OpenMP Parallelization for Large-Scale Data Visualization on Earth Simulator , 2007, IWOMP.