NASA SBIR 2008 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Tech-X Corporation
5621 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite A
Boulder, CO 80303 - 1379
(303) 448-0727

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
David A Alexander
alexanda@txcorp.com
5621 Arapahoe Ave Ste A
Boulder, CO 80303 - 1379
(303) 448-7751

Expected Technology Readiness Level (TRL) upon completion of contract: 4

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
Configuring the 3D geometry and physics of large scale parallel physics simulations is increasingly complex. Given the investment in time and effort to run these codes, it is crucial that setting up the simulation is done accurately and that rapid iterative cycles of reconfiguring are efficient. During the execution step, learning the proper syntax of commands, getting environment variables correct, writing scripts for the various common batch scheduling systems, locating applications or libraries, and managing directories of files all accumulate to a challenging set of chores. Thus, we propose the Visual Interfaces for Parallel Simulations (VIPS) project to research and develop tools to allow simulation developer to leverage state-of-the-art visualization tools by adding functionality to set up and remotely manage the execution of simulations in addition to viewing 3D output. Transforming visualization application into science studios will result in integrated and intuitive environments, easily customized for the physics simulation. Resulting VIPS Studios can assist users in choosing correct input and free them from the error-prone processes of hand-editing input files and scripts. They will also simplify remote resource organization by abstracting the idea of a scientific run and managing meta data.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The proposed open-source libraries can facilitate development of interfaces for many of the NASA simulations for a broad agency impact. Resulting integrated interfaces will reduce the administrative overhead of running simulations on NASA high-end computing platforms, thus improving the efficiency of scientists and engineers to use NASA resources to their full potential. Finally, a reference implementation with the VORPAL space plasma simulation will be immediately of benefit to science support of a NASA mission.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The proposed tools are applicable to any simulation that requires 3D geometry, runs remotely on a supercomputer, and dumps output in one of the common data formats that the visualization tools read. Tools that make the code easier to use are beneficial, especially for user groups that are less willing to deal with software with steep learning curves or poorly designed tools that need extra work to get them to produce desired results. The potential of the proposed tools applied to VORPAL, a product developed at the company submitting this proposal, represents a unique opportunity as a cross-over to non-NASA applications because of its utilization in particle accelerator physics, fusion plasma physics, and semiconductor industry research.

NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING

Software Tools for Distributed Analysis and Simulation