John Good (JPL/Caltech), Mih-seh Kong (JPL/Caltech), Thomas Handley (JPL/Caltech)
JPL/Caltech's InfraRed Science Archive (IRSA), a component of NASA's space Science Data Services, is developing a set of client (user machine) tools in JAVA to extend and compliment its server-side archive access services. This open-ended toolkit is written in pure JAVA. These components may be used individually as "beans" within other interfaces or in collaboration with each other.
There are three active areas of tool development:
1. An optional light-weight inter-tool signalling mechanism;
2. Various (also optional) front-ends to the basic IRSA archive data access services; and
3. Data visualization tools (astronomical images, maps, and large tables).
While not required, the signalling mechanism has proved extremely valuable in allowing complex N-way connections (e.g. table to image to data service) without requiring commitment to a large integrated environment. We have found it possible to construct arbitrarily complex usage scenarios with a relatively small number of very loosely couple services and visualization tools.
We have also found it unnecessary to build any special layers to support end user GUI development. In a JAVA environment and with the toolkits described, construction of specific end-user interfaces is simple enough that no additional infrastructure is required.