Title: Cloud Research in the VISAGE Project
Presenting Author: Helen Conover
Organization: University of Alabama in Huntsville
Co-Author(s): Ajinkya Kulkarni, UAH Information Technology and Systems Center Todd Berendes, UAH Information Technology and Systems Center Patrick Gatlin, NASA MSFC Manil Maskey, NASA MSFC Aaron Naeger, UAH Earth System Science Center Stephanie Wingo, NASA Postdoctoral Program/USRA

Abstract:
Field experiments, for intensive observation of particular phenomena such as hurricanes, or for ground validation of satellite observations, collect datasets from a wide variety of airborne and ground-based instruments, on different spatial and temporal scales, often in unique formats. The field data are often used with high volume satellite observations with very different spatial and temporal coverage. The challenges inherent in working with such diverse datasets make it difficult for scientists to rapidly collect and analyze the data. The VISAGE (Visualization for Integrated Satellite, Airborne, and Ground-based data Exploration) project will address these issues by combining and extending nascent efforts to provide a data-centric technology with 3D data visualization and exploration, analysis and delivery capabilities. The two primary research areas in this initial phase of the VISAGE work are (1) experimentation with 3D tiles for data visualization and exploration, and (2) investigation of serverless cloud-native technologies. VISAGE's data visualization and exploration user interface is built on Cesium, which supports 3D tiles for streaming massive, heterogeneous geospatial datasets. In particular we are working with point clouds, a proposed OGC community standard, to render millions of data points. Current research areas include better use of the tileset hierarchy to reduce the number of files that Cesium must process when instantiating a tileset for visualization, and the use of styling to make points appear larger or smaller depending on zoom level. VISAGE is also working with the Amazon Web Service (AWS) Athena stateless query service for searching both data and metadata stored in S3 buckets, and AWS Step Functions and Lambdas to orchestrate and run data processing and rendering code without provisioning or managing servers, automatically scaling resources as needed. This presentation will describe the VISAGE cloud-native architecture, initial findings and near term plans.