Visualisation on the Grid: A Web Service Approach

The visualisation strand of the e-Demand project is working to distribute the visualisation pipeline across the Grid, allowing visualisations to be composed as needed. The traditional visualisation pipeline concept is maintained by providing an ability to divide a visualisation into its component parts and then built upon by allowing each of these parts to be deployed on an appropriate grid resource. The implementation has undergone several iterations, using releases of the Globus toolkit and using standard web service technology. A client that allows visualisation services to be composed has been developed. Case studies from a range of domains across the sciences demonstrate reuse of services and multiple path visualisation pipelines. An initial analysis of performance using the scientific case studies as a basis for experimentation is discussed. The issues encountered during the differing implementations of the architecture and those still outstanding are described. Future work is outlined including support for interactivity, collaboration