This information is then made available to investigators from a wide range of disciplines, mostly unfamiliar with databases and their associated query languages. A new interface to scientific databases, the SANDBOX: Scientists Accessing Necessary Data Based On eXperimentation has come. The SANDBOX is a virtual reality tool allowing an investigator to visualize the contents of a scientific database while retrieving data.
As the data in these databases was typically collected through experimentation, an investigator can use the SANDBOX to retrieve data from the database by placing virtual instruments into a virtual reenactment of the original experiment in the same way as investigator uses an actual instrument to collect data from nature.