Helioviewer.org

Helioviewer.org is a web-based visualization tool for solar physics data based on the JPEG 2000 image compression standard. JPEG 2000 offers many useful new features and has the potential to revolutionize the way high-resolution image data are disseminated and analyzed. Using JPEG 2000, we can serve data to a client in highly compressed, quality progressive, and region-of-interest based form. These features make it possible to minimize the data transmitted while maximizing the use of the data that is transmitted. This is especially relevant for solar physics since NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is currently generating more than a terabyte of image data per day. Providing efficient access to such large data volumes at both high spatial and high time resolution is of paramount importance to support scientific discovery.