AstroShelf: Panning and Zooming the Observable Universe

Team

T. Luciani, B. Cherinka, D. Oliphant, S. Myers, W.M. Wood-Vasey,
A. Labrinidis, G.E. Marai

Description

We introduce a web-based computing infrastructure to assist the visual integration, mining and interactive navigation of large-scale astronomy observations. Following an analysis of the application domain, we design a client-server architecture to fetch distributed image data and to partition local data into a spatial index structure that allows prefix-matching of spatial objects. In conjunction with hardware-accelerated pixel-based overlays and an online cross-registration pipeline, this approach allows the fetching, displaying, panning and zooming of gigabit panoramas of the sky in real time. To further facilitate the integration and mining of spatial and non-spatial data, we introduce interactive trend images - compact visual representations for identifying outlier objects and for studying trends within large collections of spatial objects of a given class.

Publications

• Large-Scale Overlays and Trends: Visually Mining, Panning and Zooming the Observable Universe
• Panning and Zooming the Observable Universe with Prefix-Matching Indices and Pixel-Based Overlaysa

Honors

• IEEE LDAV'12 Best-Paper Runner-Up (Honorable Mention)