OCTAVIUS: Object Classification Tool for Astronomy VIsUaliSation

Overview

OCTAVIUS is a comprehensive web-based portal designed for visualization and scientific classification of astronomical objects. The service facilitates collaborative analysis of survey data through an intuitive, schema-driven interface that accommodates diverse astronomical datasets and enables systematic object characterization.

This documentation provides technical guidance for both end users and developers, detailing the platform’s architecture, deployment procedures, and operational methodologies.

This documentation will also include case studies on it use and resulting application towards constraining cosmology.

Purpose and Scope

The OCTAVIUS web service serves as a centralized infrastructure for astronomical data management and classification, enabling researchers and survey teams to:

  • Efficiently organize and visualize large-scale astronomical survey datasets
  • Facilitate collaborative classification workflows through institutional and survey-specific organization structures
  • Standardize object classification processes through customizable data schemas
  • Provide secure, role-based access control for data management and administration
  • Collate in-depth classification and object marking, based on user session data to better constrain “eyeballing” errors.
  • Provide an API and deployment structure suitable for reinforcement learning of large scale survey data processing pipelines.

This documentation site contains the public technical specification and user guides. The underlying codebase remains proprietary. It is currently free to use under academic purposes but for Industry or For-Profit use please contact the XMM Cluster Survey (XCS) @ University of Sussex.

Key Features

  • Schema-Driven Data Management: Customizable data schema definition supporting diverse astronomical data types and structures
  • Dynamic Visualization: Real-time table rendering with configurable columns and auxiliary image resources.
  • Institutional Multi-Tenancy: Organization-based access control with survey-specific data partitioning
  • Collaborative Classification: User-centric classification workflow with persistence and audit trails
  • RESTful API Architecture: Clean separation between data access layer and presentation layer
  • Session Driven Data: Session based User tracking to enhance object classifications and “expert error”.

Documentation Structure

Navigate to the appropriate section:

  • Development — Technical architecture, API specifications, and development environment setup
  • Users — User guides for data import, schema configuration, and system administration.
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