Sieve: A Java-Based Collaborative Visualization Environment

We describe Sieve, a prototype Java-based collaborative environment for constructing visualizations interactively. Sieve allows collaborative construction of data-flow networks from an extensible set of modules. Modules may read data from a variety of sources, filter and transform the data in various ways, and generate visualizations. Annotation tools are also provided for mark-up and documentation of the environment’s shared workspace. Sieve supports collaboration through a replicated architecture and provides real-time information about participants’ actions and locations in the workspace. Sieve exploits JavaBeans functionality both to provide dynamic, interactive modules and also to support module state consistency among distributed replicas. CR