Australian Signals Directorate open sources its in-house data visualization tool

ASD (Australian Signals Directorate) has open sourced its in-house data visualization and analysis app on the code repository, GitHub.

Dubbed as Constellation, the software is framed with powerful analytics to enable data access, identify patterns in massive and complicated datasets, and can allow billions of inputs – all in a simple and intuitive way. With this, users can import data in multiple formats and present the information in many different graphic views for deep analysis.

This NetBeans Java application tool is designed to run on both Windows or Linux desktops.

“Putting this powerful software into the open source community is ASD’s way of giving back to the community. The sky really is the limit with Constellation,” said Mike Burgess, Director-General of ASD, soon to be the new head of security for ASIO.

“I hope this tool will help generate scientific and other breakthroughs that will benefit all Australians,” he added.

According to ASD, the tool can further be used by trade, academia, governments, research facilities or people in Australia to resolve the greatest data-driven challenges such as analyse the spread of diseases or help predict the properties of chemicals.

During the transition process, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s (CSIRO’s) Data61 assisted ASD in moving Constellation to an open source version, the security agency acknowledged.

The ASD’s decision to provide the application on GitHub will allow the open source community to expand and develop the software while meeting their individual needs. Overall, this will also improve the software’s capability throughout that will develop and benefit the whole community.