Resonant: A web platform for delivering data and analytic services

Deploying systems that help your customers and collaborators gain insights from their data can provide significant advantages to you and them; however, the development and delivery of those systems can be extremely challenging.  If your product is a data sensor (e.g., a new imaging device), bundling it with data analysis tools can provide a competitive advantage.  If your product is based in data analysis (e.g., a new deep learning algorithm for trend identification), reaching potential customers and integrating with their existing workflows can be paramount to your product’s success.  Unfortunately competing with industry giants to reach potential customers is difficult, and establishing common data analysis workflows within the enterprise and between collaborators is logistically demanding. The solution to these and numerous other data analysis and distribution challenges is to host systems as services on the web.

By hosting data analysis services on the web, distribution challenges can be greatly simplified, maintenance and support costs can be reduced, computational resources can be shared, and integration into daily workflows via mobile, tablet, and desktop devices can be greatly simplified. Kitware’s Resonant platform is a collection of open-source toolkits that can be configured to provide web-hosted services.

Web-Hosted Services Use Cases

A multitude of industries and applications are now dominated by web-hosted services.  For example:

• Pre-clinical researchers studying genetic factors, radiologists detecting cancers, surgeons planning procedures, and cardiologists quantifying heart wall muscle movement can integrate web-hosted services into their workflows.  They can upload a patient’s images from a radiological workstation or their office computer to the web and rapidly receive 3D visualizations, diagnoses, test scores, and detailed measurements, that can be viewed on their phones, tablets, and web browsers.
• Casual and commercial drone operators can upload their videos over the web and receive web-based visualizations of 3D reconstructions, object tracks, and geospatial overlays.
• Consumers can upload old wedding pictures and receive high-quality restorations, or they can upload their fitness data for comparison with their family and friends and with statistical models.

Web Services: A Catalyst for Small Businesses and a Vehicle for Innovation

Platforms for hosting web services are leveling the data analytics playing field.  They are enabling small businesses to quickly package and deliver their products and thereby compete with established industry giants.  They are also enabling established commercial giants to nimbly adapt to new technologies and opportunities.

Web-hosted services are particularly useful for new products that are based on innovative data acquisition hardware or novel data analysis algorithms; however, creating an effective web-based platform for delivering those services to customers can easily become a roadblock to success.  For example, we have seen several outstanding new products ideas that take advantage of recent advances in deep learning, and the success of those products often hinges upon creating a web-hosted service that is customer friendly and that cost-effectively manages the computational resources that deep learning systems require.  This is where Kitware’s Resonant platform can help.

Resonant: Open-Source Hosting Supported by Expert Consulting

Resonant is Kitware’s open-source platform for web-based data and service management.  It can be rapidly deployed to bring new services to commercial and academic products and processes. Those deployments can be hosted in the cloud, on in-house hardware, or based on mixture of those technologies to maximize performance while minimizing costs.

Kitware pairs its expertise in scientific computing, medical computing, computer vision, and data analytics with its Resonant platform to help new businesses and industry giants deliver their products using web-based services. Key Resonant features include:

• User authentication through local users, OAuth, LDAP, or custom behavior
• Data management and permissioned sharing through a role-based access scheme
• Support for multiple storage backends including filesystems and Amazon S3
• Scalable remote execution of analytics, including deep learning and visualization algorithms, that are well integrated with data management
• Auto-generated and customized workflow user-interfaces
• Integrated, web-based advanced 2D and 3D visualizations

For more information on Resonant, please visit

• Resonant success stories, GeoJs and vtk-js examples for demonstrations of our 2D and 3D visualization capabilities
• A series of blog posts describing the Resonant platform
• Source code for Girder, Girder Worker, Candela, GeoJs, and vtk-js
• Documentation for Girder, Girder Worker, Candela, GeoJs, and vtk-js

If you are interested in discussing a possible role for Resonant in the delivery of your innovations using web services, please contact Kitware’s Data & Analytics team, via kitware@kitware.com.