Developing Visualization Software Runnable On The Internet^1

Abstract

In this internet age, if we need some information, we go to the machine connected to the internet, type in our problems, and get the relevant replies immediately. It would be fancier if we can find appropriate tools on the internet for the statistical problems at hand. There have been some works for this. The works can be classified into two categories depending on the user interface they are employing. The first approach is all the process is performed in the server computer. With this approach, when the user types in their data, this data goes to the server machine, and all the work is performed in the server machine, and just the results are returned to the user's browser through internet. The second approach is that the process is performed in the user machine. In this case, once the user loads the appropriate programs or applets from the server into his/her computer, the server does not have any control. With the first approach, however, the server has all the controls during the whole process. Most of the big statistical packages are employing the first approach. But for the first approach, graphical images are difficult to handle. When the graphical images are needed, the server machine produces the images and sends them to the user machine through internet to be displayed on the user machine. However, the graphical images represented on each machine and softwares are diverse, and the type of graphical images of the server and the users may not agree. Some of the softwares employing the first approach are using postscript to handle graphical images in the server because postscript is in ASCII, and this is a standard form to be used in any machine. In contrast, the second approach would be free from this problem because the image is produced in the user machine. But for this second approach, the software developers are just working for goodwill, because the developer does not have any control over the software once it is downloaded on the user machine. In this discussion, "runnable on the internet" refers to this second approach. I will briefly introduce a part of our work SIVON (System for Information Visualization on the Network), and will discuss about the future prospects of our work.