3X is a software tool for conducting computational experiments in a systematic way. 3X provides a standard yet configurable structure to execute a wide variety of experiments. It organizes code, inputs, and outputs for experiments, records results, and lets users visualize data so they can drive execution interactively.
Organizing the data that goes into and comes out of experiments, as well as maintaining the infrastructure for running them, is generally regarded as a tedious and mundane task. Often times we end up in a suboptimal environment improvised and hard-coded for each experiment. The problem is exacerbated when the experiment runs must be performed iteratively for exploring a large parameter space. Easing this burden will enable us to more quickly make interesting discoveries from the data our experiments produce. "Data scientists" are emerging everywhere these days to ask questions in the form of computational experiments, and to discover new facts from the "big data" their institutions have accumulated. In fact, these computational and data-driven approaches have long been a standard method for doing science in many domains, and we see ever growing number of fields depending on computational experiments.
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A standard filesystem layout for an experiment repository, where you can organize the code of your experiments along with input data and output definitions in a transparent way, and where 3X can keep complete records of the execution results in a systematic and storage-efficient manner.
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Operations on the experiments to create the repository, to define your experiments, to plan, control, and manage executions on various target environments, and to access result data, either through a scriptable command-line interface, or an intuitive graphical user interface.
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Instant, interactive visualizations of execution results as tables and charts to let you explore and analyze the data as soon as your computations finish.
3X Features Overview gives a tour of all features 3X provides in the order of a typical workflow, and introduces terms and concepts used by the software.
3X Installation Instructions contains instructions to download, build, and install 3X on your systems. 3X runs on OS X (Mac), Linux, and other standard Unix systems with a modern web browser, but does not work on Windows. 3X is packaged as a single self-contained, executable file, so installation is basically copying one file to a special location on your system.
3X Tutorial with Examples contains detailed step-by-step instructions and screenshots using real examples. By following the tutorial, you can get hands-on experience of 3X, and get yourself ready to use it for your own experiments. Reading the 3X Features Overview first is recommended to make yourself familiar with the terms and concepts.