language: en

Tioga: Providing Data Management Support for Scientific Visualization Applications

Michael Stonebraker, Jolly Chen, Nobuko Nathan, Caroline Paxson, Jiang Wu
Computer Science Division, EECS Department University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720

Abstract We present a user interface paradigm for database management systems that is motivated by scientific visualization applications. Our graphical user interface includes a "boxes and arrows" notation for database access and a flight simulator model of movement through information space. We also provide means to specify a hierarchy of abstracts of data of different types and resolutions, so that a "zoom" capability can be supported. The underlying DBMS support for this system is described and includes the compilation of query plans into megaplans, new algorithms for data buffering, and provisions for a guaranteed rate of data delivery. The current state of the Tioga implementation is also described.

[This research was sponsored by NSF Grant IRI-9107455, ARO Grant DAAL03-91-G-0183, and DARPA Contract DABT63-92-C-0007. Additional support was provided by the University of California and Digital Equipment Corporation under Research Grant #1243. Other industrial and government partners include the State of California Department of Water Resources, United States Geological Survey, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Epoch Systems, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Corp., Hughes Aircraft Company, MCI, Metrum Corporation, PictureTel Corporation, Research Systems Inc., Science Applications International Corporation, Siemens Inc., and TRW Space and Electronics.]

1 Introduction