WORLDWIDE TELESCOPE ECO-

SYSTEM OVERVIEWJONATHAN FAY

WORLDWIDE TELESCOPE DEVELOPER WORKSHOP

NOV 7TH, 2015

WWT ECO-SYSTEM COMPONENTS

• Clients

• API’s

• Data Formats

• Tools

• Software Development Kits

• Extensibility

WWT CLIENTS

• Windows Application Client

• HTML5 Web Client

• Embeddable Control

WINDOWS CLIENT

• Richest set of features

• Runs under Windows Natively or thru Virtualization on either Local VM or Cloud

• Uses DirectX11 to achieve off-loading of rendering workload, and some compute workload

• Flexible Display modes allow for it to be used in power-walls, 3d stereo, VR headsets & Domes

• Clustering allows for use in multi-channel environments

• Can be locked down for Kiosk mode for dedicated interactive exhibits

• LCAPI allows local or remote applications to send Data & control application for integration int 3rd party scenarios

• Integrates with custom controllers thru MIDI, XBOX controller, Kinect & LCAPI automation

WINDOWS CLIENT CONTINUED

• Rich support for nested reference frames and control of both intrinsic and customizable data layers

• Built-in tour authoring and playback including simple slide based or complex key-framed animation

• Support for user data integration including 3D Models, tabular data, orbital data, imagery and catalogs

• VO client for exploration of the virtual observatory including support for FITS images & VO Tables

• WMS Client for using WMS tiled ad WMS time-series Data.

• ODATA client

• Deep integration with Microsoft Excel thru Excel Add-In and LCAPI

HTML WEB CLIENT

• A hosted subset of WWT features deliverable via cross platform, plug-in free browser based platform

• Leverages the WWT WebControl API for rendering

• Uses the same WTML image and catalog data as the desktop WWT.

• Can display tiled images, tours with audio and imagery and a significant subset of WWT intrinsic Layers

• Has a basic SolarSystem mode but does not yet support travel beyond the Solar System

• Has Tour playback, but no authoring or tours. Supports slide tours without timeline.

• Has both HTML5 rendering and a yet to be release WebGL rendering pipeline

• Feature parity with a majority of the WWT visual features could be achieve with WebGL and continued development investment. Some features like cluster-rendering, MIDI, etc. are not practical to implement in a browser and will not be targeted for feature partity.

EMBEDDABLE CONTROL

• Crosses the line between a flexible client and a easy SDK

• Designed to be easily dropped into 3rd party websites with ease

• Implements a subset of the WWT UI to support visualizing data sets or playing tours

APPLICATION PROGRAMING INTERFACES (APIS)

• LCAPI (Layer Control API) Implemented by the Windows client for control of layers and mode

• HTML5 Web Control – Javascript control and API to deeply integrate WWT visualization and tour playback into 3rd party websites

• Web Services API – Sets of Hosted web services that deliver or process data to/for the WWT clients and other consumers

• Windows Client Socket API – Private API used by WWT Kinect control to interact with WWT. Documented only in the Source for the Kinect Control Sample

WWT DATA FORMATS

• WTML – Meta data description of how to find places & streaming data services

• Tiled Data – Tiled multi-resolution images sets in a variety of projections that are described by metadata and delivered thru HTTP streams and described by Metadata in a WTML file. Tiles are quad trees

• Supported Projections

• TOAST – Spherical projection without singularities, delivered thru a quad-tree tile structure. All Sky support

• Mercator – Mercator projected tiles such as those provided by Bing & Google maps. Poles are cut off

• Equirectangular (plate carrée) - equidistant cylindrical projection for all-sky images. Poles have Singularity

• Tangential Study maps – Tan projected sections of small areas of the sky

• VAMP encoded images can be loaded and viewed directly, or tiled by our web service

WWT DATA FORMATS - CONTINUED

• 3D models – .3ds or .obj file formats including textures and lighting

• Tabular Data – Either thru cut/paste or import tabular data can be visualized thru interactive UI.

• WMS – Web Mapping Service source for tiled and time-series data

• VO Table – Tabular Data in VO Table Format can be viewed as tables or visualized

• FITS – FITS file in Tan projection with WCS in celestial coordinates can be viewed and stretched

• Shapefiles and WKT – Shape files can be loaded and viewed and converted to WKT & Tables. WKT can be included in tabled for viewing complex geometry along with a text extension for displaying oriented text in 3D

• ODATA – Tabular feeds from ODATA sources can be mapped in layers and dynamically refreshed at load time

• TLE – Two Line Element orbital data can be used for bulk display of orbits, or as a foundation for a reference frame

WWT DATA FORMATS – PLATE FILES

• Plate files are an efficient way to store, exchange and deliver tiled multi-resolution images

• Plate filed have and index and data storage and allow millions of small filed to be packed into a single file. Single large files copy up to 2 orders of magnitude faster than the millions of files they contain

• Plate file 1 format – made for densely packed complete surveys or studies with single generation data

• Plate file 2 format – made for sparse data that can contain multiple generations of data for a given tile index. Great for building large surveys over time with streaming data. Example: Mars HiRise

TOOLS

• Sphere Toaster – Takes small to medium sized images and outputs TOAST tile pyramids & WTML

• Study chopper – Takes small to medium study images and outputs TAN projected tile pyramids & WTML

• AVM import tool – Taked AVM tagged images with WCS coordinates and created hosted tile pyramids and WMTL files to access them

• Tools in SDK – The SDK contains sample tools created with the SDK to map data.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT KITS (SDKS)

• LCAPI (Layer Control API) – A loosely coupled HTTP service API hosted by the WWT windows client allowing code developed in any language to send and receive data from the WWT client and control the creation and display of layers. The LCAPI also has access to the controller end-points and can access any WWT functionality that can be mapped to MIDI, XBOX controls or custom UI controllers

• Tile SDK – A software tool kit with samples that allows you to create a custom data transformation pipeline to take your image or elevation data from your input format and output it to WWT compatible pyramids

• Terrapixel Project – While not exactly a SDK, it is an open source pipeline we user to reprocess the original DSS data from the scanned plates and turn into a Terrapixel TOAST pyramid with globally optimized color and brightness correction.

OTHER WWT COMPATIBLE SDKS AND TOOLS

• Montage by IPAC - https://montageblog.wordpress.com/

• NASA Skyview - http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov/jar/skyviewinajar.html

BUILT-IN EXTENSIBILITY

• Layers

• MIDI control

• Kiosk Mode + Navigation in Tours

• Cluster operation

• Communities

• WTML

FINDING CODE – GITHUB REPOSITORY

• wwt-windows-client – Home of the windows source client

• wwt-tile-sdk – Home of the Tile SDK source code

• wwt-web-client – Home of the HTML5 Web Client

• wwt-excel-plugin – Home of the Add-In source code for Microsoft Excel

• wwt-remote – Home of the code for the WWT cluster control source code

• wwt-narwhal – Home of the source code for the C# client library wrapper and helpers for LCAPI

• wwt-website – Website source for the WorldWide Telescope project