Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) computer scientist Peter Lindstrom recently received a 2025 IEEE VIS Test of Time Award for his 2014 paper on near-lossless data compression, recognizing its lasting influence on the field of scientific visualization and high-performance computing.
Presented annually at the IEEE VIS Conference, the Test of Time Award honors papers published at least ten years earlier that have made a sustained impact on visualization research and practice. Lindstrom's paper, which introduced a new method for compressing numerical simulation data with high efficiency and precision, continues to shape how scientists handle the immense data volumes produced by modern supercomputers.
The paper, "Fixed-Rate Compressed Floating-Point Arrays," describes a fixed-rate, near-lossless compression scheme that allows scientists to store and access floating-point data more efficiently, reducing storage demands and data movement while preserving numerical accuracy. The technique enables random access to compressed arrays, making it well suited for simulation, analysis and visualization tasks that require frequent data reads and writes.
Lindstrom's work laid the foundation for ZFP, a widely adopted open-source compression library developed at LLNL that has become a cornerstone technology in scientific computing. ZFP allows users to specify compression rates while maintaining high accuracy, enabling in-memory compression, fast random access and compatibility with GPU acceleration. The approach has since been incorporated into numerous simulation and analysis frameworks across the Department of Energy complex and beyond.
"Reducing data movement is one of the grand challenges in computing today," Lindstrom said. "ZFP grew out of the idea that we could rethink how we represent floating-point numbers, not just to save space but to make computation itself more efficient. It's rewarding to see the broader community continue to build on that concept."
Lindstrom, a senior member of IEEE, conducts research in data compression, geometry processing and visualization within LLNL's Center for Applied Scientific Computing (CASC). His work supports the Laboratory's mission in simulation-based science, helping researchers manage and analyze data at scales once thought impossible.
The IEEE VIS Conference is the premier forum for advances in visualization and visual analytics. The 2025 Test of Time Awards were announced at the conference in Vienna, Austria, celebrating research that has stood the test of a decade.
