The Ignite Distributed Collaborative Scientific Visualization System

We describe the Ignite Distributed Collaborative Scientific Visualization System (IDCVS), a system which permits real-time interaction and visual collaboration around large data sets, with an initial emphasis on scientific data. The IDCVS offers such a collaborative environment, with real-time interaction on any device between users separated across the wide area. It provides seamless interaction and immediate updates even under heavy load and when users are widely separated: the design goal was to fetch a data set consisting of 30,000 points from a server and render it within 150ms, for a user anywhere in the world, and reflect changes made by a user in one location to all other users within a bound provided by network latency. The system was demonstrated successfully on a significant worldwide air pollution data set, with values on 10, 25, 50, and 100km worldwide grids, monthly over an 18-year period. It was demonstrated on a wide variety of clients, including laptop, tablet, and smartphone.