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The importance of advanced analysis and visualization tools was recognized during the Airlie House Workshop on Magnetotail Energy Flow and Non-Linear Dynamics. Issues focused on key parameter distribution for designated campaign periods and the organization of workshops for the exchange of high resolution data among investigators.
The working group recommended that part of the visualization effort also be integrated into the mission theory and modelling efforts to address key issues in campaign planning and theory-data closure.
Mission oriented theory and modelling results could be used more effectively in campaign strategies and coordination by developing a common visualization interface between the different agencies' systems.
Elements of visualization could be drawn from the existing software developed at the Goddard Space Flight Centre (GFSC) Science Planning and Operation Facility (SPOF), the Spacecraft Position Information Network (SPIN) developed by the Japanese Institute of Space and AstronauticaI Science (ISAS), and the Orbit Visualization Tool (OVT) package developed with the support of the European Space Agency (ESA). These elements together with the results from mission oriented theory and modelling could be combined through visualization protocols to make quantitative predictions along spacecraft trajectories.
To satisfy the campaign goals, data and results from theory and modelling must be easily compared. It is thus recommended that protocols be developed to ensure that data and model results are readily accessible and have common standards and physical units for visualization. IACG standards for data labelling and formatting could be expanded to include data sets obtained from mission oriented theory and modelling results. This procedure could be tested first on results from existing generic simulations, such as global MHD results, large-scale kinetic, etc., and based on key parameters. Collaborative efforts between experimentalists and mission theorists could define later the specific visualization needs and formats for coordinated theory-data workshops for each campaign.
Several commercial visualization packages such as Advanced Visualization System (AVS), Interactive Display Language (IDL), etc and analysis packages (PV-Wave, Data Explorer, etc) are available for mainframes and workstations.
These systems are very useful for simple tasks such as filtering, mapping and rendering. However, specific tools must be built to carry out visualizations and analyses in a magnetospheric context (e.g., magnetic field line tracers, conversion to physical plasma quantities, etc.) and to interface with existing mission planning tools (e.g., orbits, coordinate systems, etc.). Furthermore, three-dimensional packages are usually inadequate for two-dimensional plots, and including additional graphics packages must be considered. The choice of a data-flow network architecture is probably the best to build a common Visualization and Analysis Tool (VAT) library to integrate existing software developed by various simulation groups. However, translator systems will be required to interface planning tools.
To implement this recommendation it was suggested that IACG campaign mission facilities connected to networks could support the access and dissemination of the visualization tools. Considering the current technology and network infrastructures, Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) support seem more appropriate for the distribution of the large data sets generated from mission oriented theory and modelling efforts. Special workshops could be organized to define the protocols and standardization necessary to implement the VAT library.
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