ViSBARD - Data Visualization and Analysis Software

ViSBARD provides a way of visualizing multiple vector and scalar quantities as measured by many spacecraft at once. The data are displayed three-dimesionally along the orbits which may be displayed either as connected lines or as points. The data display allows the rapid determination of vector configurations, correlations between many measurements at multiple points, and global relationships. Things such as vector field rotations and dozens of simultaneous variables are very difficult to see in (complementary) panel plot represtations.

Data may be read into ViSBARD in ASCII or CDF form, with either a header or a simple "resource description file" that specifies how the file is formatted. A newer feature allows the loading of any CDF file, where ViSBARD allows the user to select which variables to import and automatically generates this resource description file.

There are links below to a set of example files for downloading include all the COHOWeb average field and plasma values for all the major interplanetary missions, as well as selected subsets of near 1 AU and magnetospheric data and the complete orbits of 25 spacecraft. Stills and movies of many examples show the results of using the software.

The "Retrieval" aspect of ViSBARD currently links to the Virtual Space Physics Observatory to allow access to a wide variety of datasets from within the application. It is also linked to the NSSDC's CDAWeb and SSCWeb repositories. All three of these data sources connect via the Web Services Description Language (WSDL), an XML language for describing Web Services.

ViSBARD is written in the Java programming language, so it is able to run under Microsoft Windows 98/ME/2000/XP (Vista untested), Macintosh OS X 10.3 or greater, and Linux-based operating systems. It also supports stereoscopic hardware for 3-D viewing.

The current and next generation of space physics missions require a means to display from tens to hundreds of time series of data in such a way that the mind can comprehend them for the purposes of browsing data, retrieving them in directly useful form, and analyzing them in a global context. Sets of many spacecraft, each carrying many instruments yielding nearly continuous data at high time resolution have become one of the most effective ways to make progress in understanding the extended, ionized (plasma) atmosphere of the Earth and the Sun.

Most of the major planned Sun-Earth Connection (SEC) missions involve two or more spacecraft, and nearly all will benefit from the existence of other missions. NASA's Living With A Star program will need to use data from its own and many other SEC missions to achieve the global understanding needed to predict space weather. For these large collections of data to be effective, they must be extremely readily accessible, with simple, comprehensible overviews of what is available. Although NASA has made considerable strides in this recently, many impediments remain to the effective combination of disparate but related data sets. ViSBARD provides a means to answer these concerns.

All Heliospheric (34.0MB): Includes all COHOWeb data available (Helios 1, Helios 2, OMNI M, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Pioneer Venus Orbiter, Ulysses, Voyager 1, Voyager 2), reformatted into Cartesian coordinates for ViSBARD. It contains density, temperature, magnetic field, and velocity data, hourly-averaged.

All Orbits (180MB): Orbits of 24 spacecraft taken from the SSCWeb at 1min-12min resolution, depending on its distance from the Earth -- enough to make the orbits smooth. Higher-resolution data can be generated and downloaded from the SSCWeb if needed. Includes data from Ace, Cluster 1-4, Equator-S, FAST, Geotail, GOES 8-11, IMAGE, IMP-8, Interball Tail, LANL 90,91,94,97, Polar, SAMPEX, SOHO, TIMED, and Wind.

An example of creating data sets of interest from CDAWeb is described in the doc/ViSBARDTutorialExamples file. However, with the recent feature addition to allow reading of all CDF files, a manual file import process is no longer needed. Simply load any CDF file of interest, and ViSBARD will guide the user through a data import wizard.

If the program doesn't start, please e-mail the specifics of the machine, graphics card, and operating system to Aaron Roberts. Describe any error messages that you see. We may not be able to solve the problem, but the information would be useful.

============================
Acknowledgements
============================

ViSBARD is written in Sun Microsystems' Java programming language, and most of the packages below contain a copy of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) necessary to launch ViSBARD, along with the necessary Java3D and Java Advanced Imaging (JAI) extensions. They will not overwrite any pre-existing versions of Java installed on your system, as they stay contained in the ViSBARD file tree.

Java components are not packaged with the Macintosh distribution of ViSBARD, as Apple requires you to install the components to your system as described in the Quick Start Guide.

ViSBARD itself is planned to be put under the NASA Open Source Agreement. Changes and improvements by the community will be welcome.

2007/10/14 Fixed intermittent problems when auto-merging orbit data from SSCWeb.

2007/10/12 Fixed data import problem when loading non-CDAWeb CDFs that don't include FIELDNAM tags for its variables; also fixed case when FILLVAL is a UCHAR, but detected as a FLOAT.

2007/08/15 Added ability to swap eyes in stereoscopic viewing mode; changed units of requested SSCWeb orbit data from km to Re.

2007/08/03 Remote file access updates: integrated Virtual Space Physics Observatory client into "Open Remote" panel,updated SSC Web Services to v2.0, restored feature that shows date range available for each instrument while browsing the CDAWeb repository. Tsyganenko magnetic field line plotting updates: increased precision of IGRF date calculations, updated to IGRF-10 (1900-2010), implemented context of neighboring field lines around an originally plotted one, cropped model output to X > -15Re since that is its published valid extent, finished implementing Tsyganenko 2001 model, implemented adjustable color mapping.

Miscellaneous: allowing variable names to be remapped after they are loaded, exporting all ViSBARD .class files into single JAR instead of individually, mousewheel can now be used for zooming, updated CDF & OVT libraries to be Mac "Universal", updated CDF library to v3.1, transitioned to Java 1.5; discontinuing support for Windows 98, made cross-platform session loading/saving more robust, implemented dynamic solar wind pressure (PSW) input to bow shock and magnetopause models with data from OMNI via CDAWeb. Bugfixes: Fixed time input bug in remote file browsing: under certain circumstances, requested date range was converted to local time; in remote file access panels, the "Retrieve Data" button was not always enabled when it should be; fixed window layering issues: now main window can be brought to front; fixed problem with "About" dialog mysteriously reappearing on Macs; fixed multi-file error when multiple S/C are selected for SSCWeb download; fixed variable mapping issues: Refined properties panel/mapper to reflect only the variables of the selected dataset; fixed bug that didn't allow MagField and Velocity to be mapped to glyph size.

2007/03/06     Completed Mac Universal testing, repackaged beta distribution 2007/02/21     Updated Intel-based Mac port with new CDF libraries. 2007/01/05     Beta release of Intel-based Mac port. Includes many soon-to-be-documented features                that will be in next release. 2006/01/06     Ported OVT code to plot Tsyganenko magnetic field lines (beta); added ability to pull                model's input parameters online from OMNI via CDAWeb; using Reine Chimiak's Java                coordinate transformation routines for GSM-->GSE conversions; added option to display                currently shown time as an overlay on the main 3-D window; now allowing user-specified                fill values for ASCII output; changed "Open Remote" time input format to ISO; fixed                lousy scrolling in OpenRemote panel; removed Java Runtime Environment 1.3.1_08 from                Windows distribution; added animation option to scroll through time at even pace from                start to finish of displayed time; fixed stereoscopic handling of loaded/saved                sesstions; updated splash screen 2005/07/08     Auto-generate RDFs for new/unrecognized data types (CDF) fully implemented; Minor                fixes to this since last unofficial release: dialog is resizable, "Not Selected"                option available for drop-down boxes, variables are auto-selected when chosen by                drop-down box, more verbose error messages; Updated documentation to reflect                auto-RDF generation; Fixed bug when restoring saved sessions: the time slider                zooms in as necessary if a relatively small range was saved; When exporting data                as a VBA (ViSBARD ASCII), missing data is reported as "0.0000" instead of "---" 2005/05/06     Physical units are now taken directly from RDF files instead of being automatically      converted; exceptions of Location, MagField, and Velocity, as they are automatically                forced to km, nT, and km/s, respectively; Numbers are now shown in exponential                notation to better handle very small or very large values; Scaling panel now allows                user to adjust range to be smaller than 0.001 in length; Updated documentation and                help system to reflect changes in past year, including new file input/loading;                converted files to PDF; Updated Quick Start Guide to include method of installing        and launching ViSBARD from the Mac GUI; Updated web page to include a gallery                section 2005/03/22     Implemented ability to automatically retrieve and combine SSCWeb Orbit data when      existing data does not have location info included; Fixed crash when orbit                plotting enabled and time slider shrunken to < 2 data points; Made Mac/Linux                launch scripts executable "out of the box"; included instructions to create an                alias 2005/02/16     "Save Session" now saves "combined" datasets properly; multiple S/C can be               selected simultaneously for SSCWeb remote transfers; Resource Loading Toolkit                GUI streamlined for easier usage; remote transfers and operations with Web                Services can be interrupted by user; minor GUI fixes 2004/12/30     Added connectivity to SSCWeb for easy access to orbit data from 70+ satellites;                fixed problem loading Wind H0 SWE and Geotail H0 CPI data -- bugs were in RDFs                that were not specific enough, which then caused other RDFs to be used; fixed                more bugs with "Add Remote" functionality 2004/12/16     Matches of RDFs to CDFs based on most-specific RDF; better detail for near-Earth                viz; miscellaneous buxfixes in "Add Remote" functionality; "Add Remote" and                "Resource Loading Toolkit" windows now non-blocking 2004/12/07     Several updates to the user interface for retrieving remote files: ability to                filter regognized file types, confirmation dialog boxes and progress bars added,                components are cleanly arranged, etc. Some changes made to RDF support, including                allowing location data to be loaded in component form via LocationX, LocationY,                LocationZ. Updated code to work correctly under Win32 Java v1.4. 2004/11/22     Beta ability to browse and retrieve remote files from CDAWeb from within ViSBARD.                Also added ability to load CDF data with location stored as components (see                settings/CDF_IDFS_C1MAPPED.xml as an example) 2004/09/29     Minor bugfixes of "save session" functionality. 2004/09/17     Ability to "save session" of all current settings, data sets loaded, etc. 2004/08/02     Selecting a glyph now shows up in the 2-D and graph windows, glyph can be                deselected by double-clicking in an empty space, minimum size of glyphs                can now be very close to 0, arrow antialiasing can be enabled/disabled, and                miscellaneous minor bugfixes.2004/07/08     Additions: Key for 2-D plots, setting to store data directory root.
               Fixes: Mac screen capture problems, Mac lighting issues, Mac launch problem if    there's spaces in the current directory path, 2-D component scaling issue,                bug in keyframe loading routine. 2004/06/07     Added RDFs and appropriate units to allow reading of Cluster PP data and                additional Geotail CPI data. 2004/04/29     Plots vector components in 2-D window (X=red, Y=green, Z=blue). 2004/03/22     Final degree of freedom of rotation added ("tilt"/rotation about Z-axis) 2004/03/08     Hangs during startup fixed, documentation updated, platform-specific packages                created, web page posted. 2004/02/20     Beta release with updates from Ryan Boller, including cross-platform support,
               orbit plotting, stereoscopic support, and more flexible animation output.
2002/11/10     Alpha release by Aquilent

* PPC-based Mac users: a system hang can unexpectedly occur when resizing the main window; there are currently no known workarounds * Session load/save does not track how many arrows are being used in the glyph mapper* Random gray vectors occasionally visible due to fill data points
* Mag pole checkbox enable/disable state incorrect after dataset removed
* Lighting of glyphs at extreme distances incorrect
* Home button ineffective at extreme distances

* Allow import of space weather model data * Release source under NASA Open Source Agreement * Create platform-specific application installers * Finish logarithmic scaling option * Refine data import GUIs* Create tutorial video and sample sessions

====================================================================================

                                        NASA Privacy, Security, Notices
                                        Curator: Ryan A. Boller
                                        NASA Official: D. Aaron Roberts
                                        Last Updated: October 14, 2007