CSCV - Computer Supported Collaborative Visualization

Collaboration is important in visualization: major scientific discoveries are typically the work of large research teams, not the solitary scientist. These teams need visualization tools that allow the different members, perhaps at different sites, to investigate collectively the results of a simulation or experiment. Yet current visualization systems are modelled on the solo worker: any collaboration must be done by clustering around a single workstation. This paper describes work carried out at Leeds under the COVISA project. We show how the Haber and McNabb reference model of filter-map-render pipeline can be extended to a powerful model for collaborative visualization, where scientists may each construct their own pipeline, but share data and parameters. This acts then as an implementation model for a collaborative modular visualization environment. Indeed we have developed an extension to IRIS Explorer in this way, allowing two scientists to work together on a visualization.