PNNL

Abstract

When constructing visualization pipelines using toolkits such as Visualization Toolkit (VTK) and Generic Mapping Tools (GMT), developers must understand (1) what toolkit operators will transform their data from its raw state to some required view state and (2) what viewers are available to present the generated view. Traditionally, developers learn about how to construct visualization pipelines by reading documentation and inspecting code examples, which can be costly in terms of the time and effort expended. Once an initial pipeline is constructed, developers may still have to undergo a trial and error process before a satisfactory visualization is generated. This paper presents the Visualization Knowledge Project (VisKo) that is built on a knowledge base of visualization toolkit operators and how they can be piped together to form visualization pipelines. Developers may now rely on VisKo to guide them when constructing visualization pipelines and in some cases, when VisKo has complete knowledge about some set of operators (i.e., sequencing and parameter settings), automatically generate a fully functional visualization pipeline.