A Prototype Discovery Environment for Analyzing and Visualizing Terascale Turbulent Fluid Flow Simulations

Figure 1. Solar convection is dominated by the formation of thermal downflow plumes in the surface layer. This image displays the enstrophy in a three-dimentional compressible starting plume driven by cooling at the top and descending (left to right) through a highly stratified (increasing density with depth) medium. Scientific visualization is routinely promoted as an indispensable component of the knowledge discovery process in a variety of scientific and engineering disciplines. However, our experiences with visualization at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) differ somewhat from those described by many in the visualization community. Visualization at NCAR is used with great success to convey highly complex results to a wide variety of audiences, but the technology only rarely plays an active role in the day-to-day scientific discovery process. We believe that one reason for this is the mismatch between the size of the primary simulation data sets produced and the capabilities of the software and visual computing facilities generally available for their analysis. Here we describe preliminary results of our efforts to facilitate visual as well as non-visual analysis of terascale scientific data sets with the aim of realizing greater scientific return from such large scale computation efforts