Pipeline Pilot

Developer(s)	Accelrys
Initial release	1999 (1999)
Stable release	18.1 / May 2018 (2018-05)
Written in	C++
Operating system	Windows and Linux
Type	Visual and dataflow programming language
License	Proprietary
Website	accelrys.com/products/collaborative-science/biovia-pipeline-pilot/

Pipeline Pilot is a desktop software program sold by Dassault Systèmes for processing and analyzing data. It was originally used for its basic ETL (extract, transform, and load) and analytics capabilities, which have broadened over time.

The program has the ability to design data workflows using a graphical user interface. It is a visual and dataflow programming software and has been used in cheminformatics, QSAR, Next Generation Sequencing, image analysis, and text analytics.

History

Pipeline Pilot was created by SciTegic. BIOVIA subsequently acquired SciTegic and Pipeline Pilot in 2004. BIOVIA was itself purchased by Dassault Systèmes in 2014.

The product expanded from an initial focus on chemistry to include general extract, transform, and load (ETL), analytical, and data processing collection capabilities.

Overview

Pipeline Pilot is part of a class of software products that provide user interfaces for manipulating and analyzing data. Like other graphical ETL products, it enables users to pull from different data sources, such as CSV files, text files, and databases.

The graphical user interface, called the Pipeline Pilot Professional Client, allows users to drag and drop discrete data processing units called "components". Components can load, filter, join, or manipulate data. Components can also build regression models, train neural networks, or process datasets into PDF reports. Pipeline Pilot implements a component paradigm. Components are represented as nodes in a workflow. In a mathematical sense, components are modeled as nodes in a directed graph: "pipes" (graph edges) connect components and move data along from node to node, where operations are performed on the data.

Users can choose from components that come pre-installed or create their own components in workflows called "protocols". Protocols are sets of linked components. Protocols can be saved, reused, and shared. Users can mix and match components that are provided with the software from BIOVIA with their own custom components. Connections between two components are called "pipes", and are visualized in the software as two components connected by a pipe. Data flows from left to right along the pipes. Pipeline Pilot can visually condense a series of data manipulations that involve many components.

Component collections

Pipeline Pilot features a number of add-ons called "collections". Collections are groups of specialized functions like processing genetic information or analyzing polymers offered to end users for an additional licensing fee. Currently, there are a number of these collections.

Group	Domain	Component collection
Science specific	Chemistry	Chemistry
		ADMET
		Cheminformatics
	Biology	Gene Expression
		Sequence Analysis
		Mass Spectrometry for Proteomics
		Next Generation Sequencing
	Materials Modeling & Simulation	Materials Studio
		Polymer Properties (Synthia)
Generic	Reporting & Visualization	Reporting
	Database & Application Integration	Integration
	Imaging	Imaging
	Analysis & Statistics	Data Modeling
		Advanced Data Modeling
		R Statistics
	Document Search & Analysis	Chemical Text Mining
		Text Analytics
	Laboratory	Plate Data Analytics
		Analytical Instrumentation

Custom scripts

Pipeline Pilot is often used when one or more large (1TB+) and/or complex datasets are processed. Early in its development, Pipeline Pilot created a scripting language called "PilotScript" that enabled end users to write basic programming scripts that could be incorporated into a Pipeline Pilot protocol. Later releases extended support for a variety of programming languages, including Python, .NET, Matlab, Perl, SQL, Java, VBScript and R. The product supports a number of APIs for different programming languages that can be executed without the program's graphical user interface.

The syntax for PilotScript is based on PLSQL. It can be used in components such as the Custom Manipulator (PilotScript) or the Custom Filter (PilotScript). As an example, the following script can be used to add a property named "Hello" to each record passing through a custom scripting component in a Pipeline Pilot protocol. The value of the property is the string "Hello World!".

Hello := "Hello World!";