Scalable visual reasoning: Supporting collaboration through distributed analysis

Abstract

We present a visualization environment called the scalable reasoning system (SRS) that provides a suite of tools for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of reasoning products. This environment is designed to function across multiple platforms, bringing the display of visual information and the capture of reasoning associated with that information to both mobile and desktop clients. The service-oriented architecture of SRS facilitates collaboration and interaction between users regardless of their location or platform. Visualization services allow data processing to be centralized and analysis results to be collected from distributed clients in real time. We use the concept of ldquoreasoning artifactsrdquo to capture the analytic value attached to individual pieces of information and collections thereof, helping to fuse the foraging and sense-making loops in information analysis. Reasoning structures composed of these artifacts can be shared across platforms while maintaining references to the analytic activity (such as interactive visualization) that produced them.