Plots are among the most important and widely used tools for scientific data analysis and visualization. With a plot (a.k.a.
range group-by query) data are divided into a number of groups, and at each group, they are summarized over one or more attributes
for a given arbitrary range. Wavelets, on the other hand, allow efficient computation of (individual) exact and approximate
aggregations. With the current practice, to generate a plot over a wavelet-transformed dataset, one aggregate query is executed
per each plot point; hence, for large plots (containing numerous points) a large number of aggregate queries are submitted
to the database. On the contrary, we redefine a plot as a range group-by query and propose a wavelet-based technique that
exploits I/O sharing across plot points to evaluate the plot efficiently and progressively. The intuition behind our approach
comes from the fact that we can decompose a plot query into two sets of 1) aggregate queries, and 2) reconstruction queries.
Subsequently, we exploit and extend our earlier related studies to effectively compute both quires in the wavelet domain.
We also show that our technique is not only efficient as an exact algorithm but also very effective as an approximation method
where either the query time or the storage space is limited.
This research has been funded in part by NSF grants EEC-9529152 (IMSC ERC) and IIS-0238560 (PECASE), unrestricted cash gifts
from Google and Microsoft, and partly funded by JPL SURP program and the Center of Excellence for Research and Academic Training
on Interactive Smart Oilfield Technologies (CiSoft); CiSoft is a joint University of Southern California - Chevron initiative.