Viewpoints: A high-performance high-dimensional exploratory data analysis tool

TL;DR

Viewpoints is a high-performance, GPU-accelerated visualization tool for exploring large, high-dimensional scientific data sets on a single workstation, offering interactive features like linked scatter plots and dynamic histograms.

Contribution

It introduces a minimalist, GPU-accelerated visualization software tailored for high-dimensional data analysis on standard workstations, expanding accessibility and efficiency.

Findings

Enables interactive exploration of large datasets on a single workstation.

Supports multiple scientific fields including astronomy, chemistry, and finance.

Provides efficient visualization features like linked plots and outlier detection.

Abstract

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.