Building Domain-Specific Environments for Computational Science: a Case Study in Seismic Tomography

Abstract

We report on our experiences in building a computational environment for tomographic image analysis for marine seismologists studying the structure and evolution of midocean ridge volcanism. The computational environment is determined by an evolving set of requirements for this problem domain and includes needs for high performance parallel computing, large data analysis, model visualization, and computation interaction and control. Although these needs are not unique in scientific computing, the integration of techniques for seismic tomography with tools for parallel computing and data analysis into a computational environment was (and continues to be) an interesting, important learning experience for researchers in both disciplines. For the geologists, the use of the environment led to fundamental geologic discoveries on the East Pacific Rise, the improvement of parallel ray-tracing algorithms, and a better regard for the use of computational steering in aiding model convergence. The computer scientists received valuable feedback on the use of programming, analysis, and visualization tools in the environment. In particular, the tools for parallel program data query (DAQV) and visualization programming (Viz) were demonstrated to be highly adaptable to the problem domain. We discuss the requirements and the components of the environment in detail. Both accomplishments and limitations of our work are presented.

The software architecture of a distributed problem‐solving environment

“…Initially, many of the prototype PSEs that were developed focused on linear algebra computations [17] and the solution of partial differential equations [18]. More recently prototype PSEs have been developed specifically for science and engineering applications [19][20][21][22]. Tools for building specific types of PSEs, such as PDELab [23] (a system for building PSEs for solving PDEs) and PSEWare [24] (a toolkit for building PSEs focused on symbolic computations) have been developed.…”

Why Web GIS May Not Be Enough: A Case Study with the Virtual Research Vessel

“…The challenge now, for the ridge community as well as many other scientific communities, is to couple these models into self-consistent representations of more complex processes (Cuny et al, 1997). Coupling is more complex than program composition.…”

Supporting Runtime Tool Interaction for Parallel Simulations

“…Our efforts in domain-specific environments [3] and runtime interaction [7] have been in close collaboration with geophysicists that use seismic tomography to study the formation and structure of mid-ocean ridges [11]. This technique, similar to medical CAT scans, uses recorded arrival times of acoustic energy from explosions or earthquakes to construct models of the Earth's velocity structure.…”

“…That work first resulted in an environment, called TIERRA (Tomographic Imaging Environment for Ridge Research and Analysis) [3] that provided online visualization and program control capabilities for a seismic tomography application. This new work extends and abstracts that earlier system, providing a framework that can be customized for different applications.…”