Publication Abstracts

Gazis et al. 2010

Gazis, P.R., C. Levit, and M.J. Way, 2010: Viewpoints: A high-performance high-dimensional exploratory data analysis tool. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific, 122, 1518-1525, doi:10.1086/657902.

Scientific data sets continue to increase in both size and complexity. In the past, dedicated graphics systems at supercomputing centers were required to visualize large data sets, but as the price of commodity graphics hardware has dropped and its capability has increased, it is now possible, in principle, to view large complex data sets on a single workstation. To do this in practice, an investigator will need software that is written to take advantage of the relevant graphics hardware. The Viewpoints visualization package described herein is an example of such software. Viewpoints is an interactive tool for exploratory visual analysis of large, high-dimensional (multivariate) data. It leverages the capabilities of modern graphics boards (GPUs) to run on a single workstation or laptop. Viewpoints is minimalist: it attempts to do a small set of useful things very well (or at least very quickly) in comparison with similar packages today. Its basic feature set includes linked scatter plots with brushing, dynamic histograms, normalization and outlier detection/removal. Viewpoints was originally designed for astrophysicists, but it has since been used in a variety of fields that range from astronomy, quantum chemistry, fluid dynamics, machine learning, bioinformatics, and finance to information technology server log mining. In this article, we describe the Viewpoints package and show examples of its usage.

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BibTeX Citation

@article{ga06100c,
  author={Gazis, P. R. and Levit, C. and Way, M. J.},
  title={Viewpoints: A high-performance high-dimensional exploratory data analysis tool},
  year={2010},
  journal={Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific},
  volume={122},
  pages={1518--1525},
  doi={10.1086/657902},
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - JOUR
ID  - ga06100c
AU  - Gazis, P. R.
AU  - Levit, C.
AU  - Way, M. J.
PY  - 2010
TI  - Viewpoints: A high-performance high-dimensional exploratory data analysis tool
JA  - Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific
JO  - Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
VL  - 122
SP  - 1518
EP  - 1525
DO  - 10.1086/657902
ER  -

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