CTWatch
November 2007
Software Enabling Technologies for Petascale Science
E. Wes Bethel, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Chris Johnson, University of Utah
Cecilia Aragon, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Prabhat, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Oliver Rübel, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Gunther Weber, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Valerio Pascucci, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Hank Childs, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Timo Bremer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Brad Whitlock, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Sean Ahern, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Jeremey Meredith, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
George Ostrouchov, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Ken Joy, University of California, Davis
Bernd Hamann, University of California, Davis
Christoph Garth, University of California, Davis
Martin Cole, University of Utah
Charles Hansen, University of Utah
Steven Parker, University of Utah
Allen Sanderson, University of Utah
Claudio Silva, University of Utah
Xavier Tricoche, University of Utah

8
Conclusion

This article has but scratched the surface of a number of serious challenges facing modern scientific researchers. At the root of most of these challenges is the fact that we are awash with information, and that gaining understanding from an increasing amount of data is an incredibly challenging task with few, if any, “off-the-shelf” solutions. This article has provided an overview of the value of visualization in scientific knowledge discovery, as well as a couple of examples of current state-of-the-art.

The mission of DOE’s SciDAC Visualization and Analytics Center for Enabling Technologies is to gain traction on solutions to this large family of difficult challenges. We use a multi-faceted approach where state-of-the-art technologies from visualization, data analysis, data management, visual interfaces, software architecture and engineering are brought to bear on some of the world’s most challenging scientific data understanding problems.

For more information about VACET, please visit our website at www.vacet.org.

Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 as part of the DOE Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing program.
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Reference this article
Bethel, E. W., Johnson, C., Aragon, C., Prabhat, Rübel, O., Weber, G., Pascucci, V., Childs, H., Bremer, P.-T., Whitlock, B., Ahern, S., Meredith, J., Ostrouchov, G., Joy, K., Hamann, B., Garth, C., Cole, M., Hansen, C., Parker, S., Sanderson, A., Silva, C., Tricoche, X. "DOE's SciDAC Visualization and Analytics Center for Enabling Technologies - Strategy for Petascale Visual Data Analysis Success," CTWatch Quarterly, Volume 3, Number 4, November 2007. http://www.ctwatch.org/quarterly/articles/2007/11/does-scidac-visualization-and-analytics-center-for-enabling-technologies-strategy-for-petascale-visual-data-analysis-success/

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