S - U
USGS/BRD/GAP
The Visualization and Enabling Technologies Section (VETS), now in its third year of existence, is a dynamic and growing program within SCD. It is focused on knowledge development, the primarily post-computational phase where data moves to information, discovery, and communication. Our program includes research, development, deployment, and state-of-the-art facilities and spans the realms of large-scale data analysis and visualization, web environments and infrastructure, collaborative environments and collaboratories, Grid technology, and education and outreach. VETS has grown by over 50% in the last year, now has a staff of 18, and will continue to grow in FY2003. This was a year of progress on many fronts. We moved our new Visualization Lab and AccessGrid into a fully operational mode, and its popularity, usage, and impact greatly exceeded our initial high expectations. NCL capabilities were dramatically expanded particularly relative to the new release of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). We made substantial progress in advancing the DOE-sponsored Earth System Grid project, engaged in collaborative work with the Unidata-led THREDDS project, and moved our NSF-funded VGEE project into its final phase. This year we played the lead role in the development of another iteration of the Knowledge Environment for the Geosciences (KEG) proposal to NSF's ITR program and contributed to quite a number of other proposals as well. We also began work on NCAR Strategic Initiatives in the area of web-based data provision and next-generation web environments, and through the efforts of the Web Engineering Group (WEG) further expanded our core hardware and software information technology for all of UCAR. VETS staff engaged in a broad portfolio of collaborative interactions with people and projects at NCAR and other organizations. We also continued our tradition of maintaining a high level of visibility at both conferences and via a huge number of internal events. In the pages that follow, we briefly summarize our progress in providing facilities for analysis, visualization, and collaboration. Information provided by http://www.cisl.ucar.edu/docs/asr2002/vets.html