research-article

tFUTURES: Computational Steering for Geosimulations

Authors:

Ashwin Shashidharan,

Ranga Raju Vatsavai,

Abhinav Ashish,

Ross K. MeentemeyerAuthors Info & Claims

SIGSPATIAL '17: Proceedings of the 25th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems

Article No.: 27, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/3139958.3140049

Published: 07 November 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Geographic modeling using geosimulations is a popular approach to explore outcomes from interacting geographic processes in a region. Geosimulations account for space, time, and complex spatial and spatiotemporal relationships to explore "what-if" scenarios and their potential impact in a region. However, current approaches to geosimulation limit manipulating model input and exploring alternative scenarios by controlling the simulation at runtime. Furthermore, lack of runtime support for visualization hinders the ability to view the current state of a simulation to provide meaningful steering input. In this paper, we propose a computational steering system for geosimulations, called tFUTURES, that allows users to specify steering input and execute steering actions at runtime. The core of the proposed system includes: (i) Visualization Service that provides a minimal web-based user interface; (ii) Monitoring Server that receives and handles user-initiated steering actions; and (iii) Steering Client that executes the steering actions by altering the control flow of the geosimulation at runtime. Further, we develop versioning and checkpointing features for the system to support: (i) concurrent execution paths of a geosimulation based on varying inputs in a time-step; and (ii) controlled execution with the ability to pause, advance or rollback a geosimulation. To evaluate our computational steering system, we modify the FUTURES Urban Growth Model (UGM) geosimulation to support user-initiated steering input and steering actions from a web browser. Experimental results demonstrate minimal system overhead with observed end-to-end steering latency of about 5 and 11 seconds for a single time-step of the simulation when measured in a local and distributed computing environment, respectively.

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Cited By

Lawson MHarrison CBrugger ESkinner ALarsen M(2021)Automated In Situ Computational Steering Using Ascent’s Capable Yes-No MachineISAV'21: In Situ Infrastructures for Enabling Extreme-Scale Analysis and Visualization10.1145/3490138.3490144(24-30)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3490138.3490144
Shashidharan AVatsavai RMeentemeyer RBanaei-Kashani FHoel EGüting RTamassia RXiong L(2018)FUTURES-DPEProceedings of the 26th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems10.1145/3274895.3274948(464-467)Online publication date: 6-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3274895.3274948

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGSPATIAL '17: Proceedings of the 25th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems

November 2017

677 pages

ISBN:9781450354905

DOI:10.1145/3139958

Copyright © 2017 ACM.

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Published: 07 November 2017

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SIGSPATIAL'17: 25th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems

November 7 - 10, 2017

CA, Redondo Beach, USA

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SIGSPATIAL '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 39 of 193 submissions, 20%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 257 of 1,238 submissions, 21%

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Cited By

Lawson MHarrison CBrugger ESkinner ALarsen M(2021)Automated In Situ Computational Steering Using Ascent’s Capable Yes-No MachineISAV'21: In Situ Infrastructures for Enabling Extreme-Scale Analysis and Visualization10.1145/3490138.3490144(24-30)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3490138.3490144
Shashidharan AVatsavai RMeentemeyer RBanaei-Kashani FHoel EGüting RTamassia RXiong L(2018)FUTURES-DPEProceedings of the 26th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems10.1145/3274895.3274948(464-467)Online publication date: 6-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3274895.3274948

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