Visual Browsing Tool (VBT) Astrophysics Data Program

摘要

Work on the VBT for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1996 concentrated on exploring new avenues for utilizing the existing VBT software, and modifying the core software suite to work within the rapidly changing World Wide Web (WWW) environment. Recall, the original idea behind the VBT was to provide a visual interface to the astronomical databases available through the Astrophysics Data System (ADS). With the cancellation of the Classic Astrophysics Data System, and the explosion of the WWW, a decision was made to modify the VBT client to communicate between VBT generated queries and the WWW using the NCSA developed Common Client Interface (CCI) and the Common Gateway Interface (CGI). It was also decided to work in parallel to segment the current VBT code into individual WWW Java applets. This option eliminates the need to develop an executive program using the CCI but requires the custom CGI interaction for connecting to remote servers on the Web. A considerable effort has gone into researching the best method to communicate between the VBT and CCI and CGI. After testing several methods of possible communication, we have chosen to utilize the built-in capabilities of the Oracle WebSystem for this task. The WebSystem allows us to integrate the VBT database queries with dynamically-built HTML. We now have a functioning Oracle WebSystem in place and are presently building the database queries that the VBT will use to retrieve astronomical data. With the WebSystem, interaction with visual information is currently done with dynamically generated ImageMaps. While the existing ImageMap procedures provide some of the required functionality for user interaction with visual data, we feel that individual Java applets communicating with the WebSystem will provide a more robust and powerful environment.