Linking Tools
Open source tools enable collaborative science. LIVE Environments will provide a common API for describing subsets and communicating with external tools, making it easy to expand a researcher's toolbox or visualization or analytic tools.
Strong Links: Deep integration of tools, e.g. WWT in glue
World Wide Telescope is a tool for showcasing astronomical and Earth science data and knowledge. The WWT Viewer in glue demonstrates how complex web tools can be fully integrated into LIVE Environments, providing bi-directional interaction between your own data catalogs and images and vast quantities of remote data.
🪐 The live, interactive, view here shows a 25-gigabyte mosaic of the Andromeda galaxy atop the Pan-STARRS 3pi dataset with sources from the Gaia DR2 catalog overlaid. From the pywwt documentation.
🌎 The "airplane demo" showcased on the Linking Data page offers a good WWT Earth science example.
Weak Links are Still Useful (e.g. a genome browser in glue genes)
External web tools that aren't fully integrated LIVE components can still be configured to have limited interactions with LIVE components, such as uploading a specific subset for visualization in the external tool.
This UCSC genome browser "plugged-in" to glue genes offers a good 🧬 example.
Smart Links are even better!
One of LIVE's near-term goals is expanding the use of AI in linking data sets... read more on our AI page.