Fractalis: a scalable open-source service for platform-independent interactive visual analysis of biomedical data

BACKGROUND: Translational research platforms share the aim of promoting a deeper understanding of stored data by providing visualization and analysis tools for data exploration and hypothesis generation. However, such tools are usually platform bound and are not easily reusable by other systems. Furthermore, they rarely address access restriction issues when direct data transfer is not permitted. In this article, we present an analytical service that works in tandem with a visualization library to address these problems. FINDINGS: Using a combination of existing technologies and a platform-specific data abstraction layer, we developed a service that is capable of providing existing web-based data warehouses and repositories with platform-independent visual analytical capabilities. The design of this service also allows for federated data analysis by eliminating the need to move the data directly to the researcher. Instead, all operations are based on statistics and interactive charts without direct access to the dataset. CONCLUSIONS: The software presented in this article has a potential to help translational researchers achieve a better understanding of a given dataset and quickly generate new hypotheses. Furthermore, it provides a framework that can be used to share and reuse explorative analysis tools within the community.