32 NAG's IRIS Explorer

This chapter introduces IRIS Explorer as a modular data-visualization system. The chapter describes the architecture of IRIS and some of its features and indicates the ways in which the modular architecture of IRIS leads to applications in which the constituent modules may be distributed, compiled together, or made collaborative. Users of IRIS Explorer create applications by selecting and connecting software modules via a visual programming interface. Each module is a routine that operates on its input data to produce some output. Although the module suite provided with IRIS explorer is extensive, users will eventually need new modules. This may be because they have existing code that they wish to incorporate into an IRIS Explorer map or because no module exists with the functionality that they require. The modular nature of the environment makes it easy to add the missing pieces of their application, using the tools that are bundled with the IRIS Explorer system. The chapter also discusses some of the software that underlies the system and has selected a few user applications in diverse fields. Finally, the chapter indicates how the basic visualization reference model that forms the basis of this system can be extended to collaborative steering on the grid and gives an account of the work that has moved IRIS Explorer in this direction.