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Integrated Visual Simulation Pipeline - an extension of the Scientist's Expert Assistant
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| We propose to research and prototype a fully integrated visual astronomical pipeline linking data archives, scientific analysis tools, and new proposal preparation systems.
NGST funded the initial development of The Scientist's Expert Assistant (SEA) to research new visual approaches to proposal preparation. In the last call, AISR provided the seed funds to extend
SEA with initial scientific modeling tools and generalizing the SEA model to multiple observatories. SEA's success to date has already led to its adoption by the Space Telescope Science Institute for
production use with Hubble's observing program. SOFIA is in the initial stages of adapting SEA for their observing programs. SIRTF has adopted parts of the code and the MIDEX mission KRONOS
is considering SEA as the baseline for its user support strategy.
Building on this experience, we plan to extend both the scientific simulation capabilities and the data archive visualization into an integrated pipeline. The goal is a simulation pipeline that will allow the user to manage the complex process of simulating and analyzing images without heroic programming effort. Tying this into SEA will allow astronomers to effectively come "full circle" from retrieving archival images, to data analysis, to proposing new observations.
This simulation pipeline will increase scientific return within limited resources by improving the quality of observations and reducing the number of unusable observations. This is not only a valuable tool for traditional observatories and archives; it is also a key building block to allow the future Virtual Observatory to achieve its potential. |
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