Dynamic Collaborative Visualization Ecosystem (DynaCoVE)

DynaCoVE allows users to blend data from various sources and generate visualizations on diverse display hardware systems

Oceanit partnered with the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Laboratory for Advanced Visualization & Applications (LAVA) to develop a data visualization project for the US Dept of Defense, called the Dynamic Collaborative Visualization Ecosystem (DynaCoVE).

DynaCoVE is a new tool that combines Oceanit and LAVA Lab’s experience in distributed control systems, streaming, data processing, and immersive data visualization. It allows users to blend data from various sources and generate visualizations on diverse display hardware systems available in the DynaCoVE ecosystem.

The U.S. Armed Forces produce massive quantities of data, from seemingly disparate sources. They lack a unifying framework that can seamlessly integrate these heterogeneous data-generating technologies into a unified visualization continuum.

The DynaCoVE ecosystem achieves this unification through three major parts: 1, a central server that discovers and negotiates connections between, 2. rendering servers and, 3. display clients. Combined, these parts allow users to access and initiate connections between the available resources, rendering large datasets in real time and streaming the output to users’ displays.

For example, DynaCoVE can bring together different visualization client-side systems capable of 2D, 2 1/2D, and 3D display supporting fully-immersive, semi-immersive, and non-immersive visualization. These systems can include laptops, desktops, AR/VR systems, or even large display walls.

In a typical use case, a user can upload simulation data or sensor data and produce a visualization which can be pushed to one, or all, of the display systems within the network. For example, if one user creates a fully-immersive visualization environment of a 3D object, other users will be able to see and interact with the simulation on their connected laptops or VR headset devices.

Connected displays would receive the visualization stream in real-time and various users could manipulate the display in an amplified group environment. DynaCoVE will be the realization of an interactive ecosystem of devices, humans, and software that will provide a framework for which a renewed study of the meaning of interaction and computation can be achieved and redefine visual analytics. In summary, DynaCoVE is a unifying framework that can seamlessly integrate technologies into a unified visualization continuum.