Interactive Visualization of Multi-Terabyte Datasets on Commodity Hardware

Researchers are entering a new era in scientific discovery enabled by Big Data and E-Science- A growing, but largely untapped resource, is large-scale image analytics- To-date, images were only viewed, but advanced analytics now allow scientists to extract quantitative data from images- New imaging techniques have recently exposed everything from individual molecules to fully cleared brains- The unprecedented detail and imaging throughput provides an amazing opportunity to measure physiology with unprecedented detail, but requires significant innovation to visualize, validate and analyze these data- Furthermore, as data sizes grow, it is ever more critical to have the necessary computational power close to the data- More importantly, utilization of web-based platforms allows for collaboration with colleagues and business associates- This project will develop novel query and analysis mechanisms to generate meaningful image data from massive scientific datasets and a purely browser-based viewer for visualizing and sharing the resulting massive 3d images- We will furthermore test the resulting prototype on several real- world examples from materials science and microscopy projects- The outcome will be a platform that enables ubiquitous access to data, collaboration, and real-time feedback-