Multi-dimensional parameter-space partitioning of spatio-temporal simulation ensembles

Abstract: Numerical simulations are commonly used to understand the parameter dependence of given spatio-temporal phenomena. Sampling a multi-dimensional parameter space and running the respective simulations leads to an ensemble of a large number of spatio-temporal simulation runs. A main objective for analyzing the ensemble is to partition (or segment) the multi-dimensional parameter space into connected regions of simulation runs with similar behavior. To facilitate such an analysis, we propose a novel visualization method for multi-dimensional parameter-space partitions. Our visualization is based on the concept of a hyper-slicer, which allows for undistorted views of the parameter-space segments' extent and transitions. For navigation within the parameter space, interactions with a 2D embedding of the parameter-space samples, including their segment memberships, are supported. Parameter-space partitions are generated in a semi-automatic fashion by analyzing the similarity space of the ensemble's simulation runs. Clusters of similar simulation runs induce the segments of the parameter-space partition. We link the parameter-space partitioning visualizations to similarity-space visualizations of the ensemble's simulation runs and embed them into an interactive visual analysis tool that supports the analysis of all facets of the spatio-temporal simulation ensemble targeted at the overarching goal of analyzing the parameter-space partitioning. The partitioning can then be visually analyzed and interactively refined. We evaluated our approach with experts within case studies from three different domains.