Visualising and Analysing Massive Astronomical Datasets

with PartiView

Charles Liu

Department of Astrophysics and Hayden Planetarium

American Museum of Natural History

New York, NY U.S.A.

Some of the Key People:

Brian Abbott (AMNH)Donna Cox (NCSA/U. Illinois)Carter Emmart (AMNH)Piet Hut (IAS)Stuart Levy (NCSA/U. Illinois)Steve McMillan (Drexel U.)Peter Teuben (U. Maryland)

Special Thanks To And Also To

WHY do we want to look at this stuff?

The human eye as an analysis tool - pattern recognition, morphology

WHY do we want to look at this stuff?

The human eye as an analysis tool - pattern recognition, morphology

More important: visual information as conduit to knowledge and understanding

“A picture is worth a thousand words”

“Can’t tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it”

WHY do we want to look at this stuff?

The human eye as an analysis tool - pattern recognition, morphology

More important: visual information as conduit to knowledge and understanding

“A picture is worth a thousand words”

“Can’t tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it”

Plus: IT’S PRETTY!

(From KNPO/AURA/NSF)

HOW do we want to look at this stuff?

With a tool that’s EASY to use

With a tool that’s FLEXIBLE - applicable to numerous systems with little added effort

With a tool that’s USEFUL - produce interesting results, achieve tangible goals.

PartiView(“Particle Viewer”)

Real-time data visualization and analysis tool

Written at NCSA by Stuart Levy

Being developed at AMNH and supported for public distribution - someday, open source

PartiView

(Live demonstration of the software here)

For more information, or to download software:

http://www.haydenplanetarium.org

http://research.amnh.org/astrophysics

PartiView

Easy - shallow learning curve, simple commands

Flexible - venues from laptop to Cave to Dome;

wide applications, astronomical and otherwise

Useful - hmm… well… Soon!

PartiView

Easy - shallow learning curve, simple commands

Flexible - venues from laptop to Cave to Dome;

wide applications, astronomical and otherwise

Useful - hmm… well… Soon!

Well, actually, NOW - in one key application:

Broadening The Scope of VO with Visualisation

Visualisation has proven to be VERY POWERFUL!

Virtual Observatory At A Glance

The Last Slide

It’s already being used for broadening the VO scope.

Its development has and will parallel VO evolution.

Its primary purpose will be for VO scientific use.

HOW ARE YOU GOING TO USE IT ?http://www.haydenplanetarium.org

http://research.amnh.org/astrophysics

An easy, flexible, and fully scalable visualisation tool now exists for VO.