Developer(s) Accelrys Written in C++ | Initial release 1999 (1999) Operating system | |
Stable release 8.5 CU3 / May 2012 (2012-05) Type Visual and dataflow programming language | ||
Pipeline Pilot is the authoring tool for the Accelrys Enterprise Platform. It is a scientific visual and dataflow programming language, used in various scientific domains, such as cheminformatics and QSAR, Next Generation Sequencing, image analysis, text analytics.
Contents
History
Originally created in 1999 by SciTegic, Pipeline Pilot is now developed by BIOVIA.
Pipeline Pilot was used at first in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and by academics and government agencies. Then other industries started to adopt it, but always in science driven sectors such as Chemicals, Energy, Consumer Packaged Goods, Aerospace, Automotive, Electronics.
Basic introduction
Pipeline Pilot includes contextual help that is searchable and interactive; users should refer to it. Reviewing the examples and the documentation is the best place to start.
Components, pipelines, protocols and data records
The graphical user interface, called the Pipeline Pilot Professional Client, allows users to drag and drop components, connect them together in pipelines, and save the application developed as a protocol.
Think of the components as nodes of a directed graph: each one has a specific task on the data. Users have the choice to use predefined components, or to develop their own: components can be chosen from the library, configured, redesigned, or even created from scratch and documented at will. When a new component is made by collapsing a few components together, it is called a subprotocol.
In a typical protocol, the reading components (on the left) send the data records through the pipelines (to the right) for further process, analysis, and reporting.
Component Collections
The components are organised by science in collections.
The most interesting protocols are often those mixing collections:
PilotScript
Many custom script components are available in Pipeline Pilot, allowing experts to include their code directly into the pipelines and maintain a library of components based on their preferred language, such as Perl, Java, VBScript, .NET, JavaScript, Python, Matlab, etc.
Another option is to use PilotScript, the internal scripting language of Pipeline Pilot, which syntax is based on PLSQL. It can be used in components such as the Custom Manipulator (PilotScript) or the Custom Filter (PilotScript).
This script above will add, to each data record passing through its component, a property named Hello containing the string "Hello World!".
Community
The community forum allows users to share ideas, components, and protocols.
Companies such as ACD/Labs, BioSolveIT, ChemAxon, Cosmologic, Cresset, Linguamatics, Molecular Discovery, and Molecular Networks, partner with Accelrys to develop and provide component collections to interface with their technologies, allowing automation from within Pipeline Pilot.
Oxford Nanopore Technologies offers Pipeline Pilot NGS collection as the preferred and supported solution for secondary and higher level data analysis in their GridION system.