Showing papers in "IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications in 2014"
TL;DR: The next big thing is multisensory visualization that goes beyond the desktop, and visualization researchers need to develop and adapt to today's new devices and tomorrow's technology.
Abstract: Visualization is coming of age. With visual depictions being seamlessly integrated into documents, and data visualization techniques being used to understand increasingly large and complex datasets, the term "visualization"' is becoming used in everyday conversations. But we are on a cusp; visualization researchers need to develop and adapt to today's new devices and tomorrow's technology. Today, people interact with visual depictions through a mouse. Tomorrow, they'll be touching, swiping, grasping, feeling, hearing, smelling, and even tasting data. The next big thing is multisensory visualization that goes beyond the desktop.
119 citations
TL;DR: The goal is to develop expressive visualizations of an ensemble's properties to support scientists in this demanding parameter-space exploration.
Abstract: Simulating complex events is a challenge and often requires carefully selecting simulation parameters. As vast computation resources become available, researchers can run alternative parameter settings or simulation models in parallel, creating an ensemble of possible outcomes for a given event of interest. The visual analysis of ensembles is one of visualization's most important new areas and should greatly affect the field in the next few years. The goal is to develop expressive visualizations of an ensemble's properties to support scientists in this demanding parameter-space exploration.
69 citations
TL;DR: An overview of the analytic work in the enterprise is provided, describing challenges in data, tools, and practices and identifying opportunities for new tools for collaborative analytics.
Abstract: With greater availability of data, businesses are increasingly becoming data-driven enterprises, establishing standards for data acquisition, processing, infrastructure, and decision making. Enterprises now have people dedicated to performing analytic work to support decision makers. To better understand analytic work, particularly the role of enterprise business analysts, researchers interviewed 34 analysts at a large corporation. Analytical work occurred in an ecosystem of data, tools, and people; the ecosystem's overall quality and efficiency depended on the amount of coordination and collaboration. Analysts were the bridge between business and IT, closing the semantic gap between datasets, tools, and people. This article provides an overview of the analytic work in the enterprise, describing challenges in data, tools, and practices and identifying opportunities for new tools for collaborative analytics.
52 citations
Journal Article•
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TL;DR: CGaA editor in chief Miguel Encarnacao discusses recent changes to CGaA and the magazine's strategic orientation and introduces its newest editorial board member, Seungyong Lee of the Pohang University of Science and Technology.
Abstract: Editor in chief Miguel Encarnacao discusses recent changes to CGaA and the magazine's strategic orientation. He also introduces the magazine's newest editorial board member, Seungyong Lee of the Pohang University of Science and Technology.
52 citations
TL;DR: Researchers at the Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand are investigating free-hand gestures for natural interaction with augmented-reality interfaces and have applied the results to systems for desktop computers and mobile devices.
Abstract: Researchers at the Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand (HIT Lab NZ) are investigating free-hand gestures for natural interaction with augmented-reality interfaces. They've applied the results to systems for desktop computers and mobile devices.
49 citations
TL;DR: This survey describes emerging techniques and modalities related to emotion recognition based on body movement as well as recent advances in automatic emotion recognition and describes application areas and notation systems and explains the importance of movement segmentation.
Abstract: Humans are emotional beings, and their feelings influence how they perform and interact with computers One of the most expressive modalities for humans is body posture and movement, which researchers have recently started exploiting for emotion recognition This survey describes emerging techniques and modalities related to emotion recognition based on body movement, as well as recent advances in automatic emotion recognition It also describes application areas and notation systems and explains the importance of movement segmentation It then discusses unsolved problems and provides promising directions for future research The Web extra (a PDF file) contains tables with additional information related to the article
47 citations
TL;DR: The announcement of several new high-performance VR devices aimed at the consumer market suggests that the authors might soon have more immersive gaming options.
Abstract: Despite an eager market, the lack of high-performing virtual-reality products at consumer-level prices has relegated entertainment VR applications to something you'd find in an amusement park or still languishing as a prototype. However, the announcement of several new high-performance VR devices aimed at the consumer market suggests that we might soon have more immersive gaming options.
46 citations
TL;DR: The authors propose visual embedding as a model for automatically generating and evaluating visualizations and describes two complementary approaches--crowdsourcing and visual product spaces--for building visual spaces with associated perceptual--distance measures.
Abstract: The authors propose visual embedding as a model for automatically generating and evaluating visualizations. A visual embedding is a function from data points to a space of visual primitives that measurably preserves structures in the data (domain) within the mapped perceptual space (range). The authors demonstrate its use with three examples: coloring of neural tracts, scatterplots with icons, and evaluation of alternative diffusion tensor glyphs. They discuss several techniques for generating visual-embedding functions, including probabilistic graphical models for embedding in discrete visual spaces. They also describe two complementary approaches--crowdsourcing and visual product spaces--for building visual spaces with associated perceptual--distance measures. In addition, they recommend several research directions for further developing the visual-embedding model.
42 citations
TL;DR: The article describes how features of large-scale, projector-based augmented reality affect the design of spatial user interfaces for these environments and explores promising research directions and application domains.
Abstract: Spatial augmented reality applies the concepts of spatial user interfaces to large-scale, projector-based augmented reality. Such virtual environments have interesting characteristics. They deal with large physical objects, the projection surfaces are nonplanar, the physical objects provide natural passive haptic feedback, and the systems naturally support collaboration between users. The article describes how these features affect the design of spatial user interfaces for these environments and explores promising research directions and application domains.
42 citations
TL;DR: Over 10 years' experience with VR displays, visualization applications, and informal feedback from scientists using these applications has convinced RWTH Aachen University researchers that the combination of full immersion, high image quality, and advanced interaction metaphors makes immersive visualization valuable as an analysis tool in simulation science.
Abstract: Over 10 years' experience with VR displays, visualization applications, and informal feedback from scientists using these applications has convinced RWTH Aachen University researchers that the combination of full immersion, high image quality, and advanced interaction metaphors makes immersive visualization valuable as an analysis tool in simulation science.
41 citations
TL;DR: The differences between 2D and 3D regarding three concepts connecting computer graphics to computer science education: ownership, spatial thinking, and syntonicity are discussed.
Abstract: Visual programming in 3D sounds much more appealing than programming in 2D, but what are its benefits? Here, University of Colorado Boulder educators discuss the differences between 2D and 3D regarding three concepts connecting computer graphics to computer science education: ownership, spatial thinking, and syntonicity.
TL;DR: A proposed VA toolkit extracts data from Bitly and Twitter to predict movie revenue and ratings and is generalizable to other domains involving social media data, such as sales forecasting and advertisement analysis.
Abstract: With over 16 million tweets per hour, 600 new blog posts per minute, and 400 million active users on Facebook, businesses have begun searching for ways to turn real-time consumer-based posts into actionable intelligence. The goal is to extract information from this noisy, unstructured data and use it for trend analysis and prediction. Current practices support the idea that visual analytics (VA) can help enable the effective analysis of such data. However, empirical evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of a VA solution is still lacking. A proposed VA toolkit extracts data from Bitly and Twitter to predict movie revenue and ratings. Results from the 2013 VAST Box Office Challenge demonstrate the benefit of an interactive environment for predictive analysis, compared to a purely statistical modeling approach. The VA approach used by the toolkit is generalizable to other domains involving social media data, such as sales forecasting and advertisement analysis.
TL;DR: Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have been developing and implementing visual business ecosystem intelligence tools in corporate settings, discussing the challenges they faced, the lessons learned, and opportunities for future research.
Abstract: Macroscopic insight into business ecosystems is becoming increasingly important. With the emergence of new digital business data, opportunities exist to develop rich, interactive visual-analytics tools. Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have been developing and implementing visual business ecosystem intelligence tools in corporate settings. This article discusses the challenges they faced, the lessons learned, and opportunities for future research.
TL;DR: DIVE is a data-agnostic, ontologically expressive software framework that can stream large datasets at interactive speeds that makes novel contributions to structured-data-model manipulation and high-throughput streaming of large, structured datasets.
Abstract: The need for data-centric scientific tools is growing; domains such as biology, chemistry, and physics are increasingly adopting computational approaches. So, scientists must deal with the challenges of big data. To address these challenges, researchers built a visual-analytics platform named DIVE (Data Intensive Visualization Engine). DIVE is a data-agnostic, ontologically expressive software framework that can stream large datasets at interactive speeds. In particular, DIVE makes novel contributions to structured-data-model manipulation and high-throughput streaming of large, structured datasets.
TL;DR: This approach enables the visual exploration and analysis of large amounts of heterogeneous data, helping to generate and validate hypotheses, and uses a data-cube-based model to handle overlapping data subsets.
Abstract: Medical cohort studies enable the study of medical hypotheses with many samples. Often, these studies acquire a large amount of heterogeneous data from many subjects. Usually, researchers study a specific data subset to confirm or reject specific hypotheses. A new approach enables the interactive visual exploration and analysis of such data, helping to generate and validate hypotheses. A data-cube-based model handles partially overlapping data subsets during the interactive visualization. This model enables seamless integration of the heterogeneous data and the linking of spatial and nonspatial views of the data. Researchers implemented this model in a prototype application and used it to analyze data acquired in a cohort study on cognitive aging. Case studies employed the prototype to study aspects of brain connectivity, demonstrating the model's potential and flexibility.
TL;DR: Dual analysis uses statistics to describe both the dimensions and rows of a high-dimensional dataset and lets analysts create well-defined subtypes based on statistical properties, thus letting analysts characterize subtypes.
Abstract: Dual analysis uses statistics to describe both the dimensions and rows of a high-dimensional dataset. Researchers have integrated it into StratomeX, a Caleydo view for cancer subtype analysis. In addition, significant-difference plots show the elements of a candidate subtype that differ significantly from other subtypes, thus letting analysts characterize subtypes. Analysts can also investigate how data samples relate to their assigned subtype and other groups. This approach lets them create well-defined subtypes based on statistical properties. Three case studies demonstrate the approach's utility, showing how it reproduced findings from a published subtype characterization.
TL;DR: To determine appropriate computer science curricula, educators sought to better understand the different affordances of teaching with a visual programming language (Alice) or a text-based language (Jython).
Abstract: To determine appropriate computer science curricula, educators sought to better understand the different affordances of teaching with a visual programming language (Alice) or a text-based language (Jython) Although students often preferred one language, that language wasn't necessarily the one from which they learned the most
TL;DR: A new mult ispectral photometric-stereo method removes interreflection on diffuse materials using multispectral-reflectance information and reconstructs 3D shapes with high accuracy.
Abstract: Multispectral imaging and photometric stereo are common in 3D imaging but rarely have been combined. Reconstructing a 3D object's shape using photometric stereo is challenging owing to indirect illumination, specular reflection, and self-shadows, and removing interreflection in photometric stereo is problematic. A new multispectral photometric-stereo method removes interreflection on diffuse materials using multispectral-reflectance information and reconstructs 3D shapes with high accuracy. You can integrate this method into photometric-stereo systems by simply substituting the original camera with a multispectral camera.
TL;DR: A proposed real-time neurosurgery simulator handles skull drilling and surgical interaction with the brain by developing and combination of areas such as collision handling, haptic rendering, physical simulation, and volumetric visualization.
Abstract: A proposed real-time neurosurgery simulator handles skull drilling and surgical interaction with the brain. This involves the development and combination of areas such as collision handling, haptic rendering, physical simulation, and volumetric visualization. The simulator's input data comes from computed-tomography and magnetic-resonance-imaging images of the patients. Collision detection for drilling uses only density data; collision detection for interaction with the brain is based on uniform spatial subdivision of a tetrahedral mesh. To take advantage of all the information, the simulator employs visualization methods such as volumetric isosurfaces and deformable volume rendering.
TL;DR: A proposed GPU-accelerated method enables interactive quantitative estimation of the risk for a particular path and exploits acceleration spatial data structures and efficient implementation of algorithms on GPUs to achieve interactive rates even for high-resolution meshes.
Abstract: Advances in computational methods and hardware platforms provide efficient processing of medical-imaging datasets for surgical planning. For neurosurgical interventions employing a straight access path, planning entails selecting a path from the scalp to the target area that's of minimal risk to the patient. A proposed GPU-accelerated method enables interactive quantitative estimation of the risk for a particular path. It exploits acceleration spatial data structures and efficient implementation of algorithms on GPUs. In evaluations of its computational efficiency and scalability, it achieved interactive rates even for high-resolution meshes. A user study and feedback from neurosurgeons identified this methods' potential benefits for preoperative planning and intraoperative replanning.
TL;DR: Researchers have created mixed-reality humans and applied them to critical team training and role-played members of an operating-room team to examine how MRH components affected social presence and the training of communication skills for medical teams.
Abstract: Researchers have created mixed-reality humans (MRHs) and applied them to critical team training. MRHs are embodied conversational agents with virtual and physical components that inhabit the user's space. In this research, MRHs role-played members of an operating-room team. Studies examined how MRH components affected social presence (the user's sense of "being there" with an embodied conversational agent) and the training of communication skills for medical teams.
TL;DR: Ontological development in biology can serve as a focus to discuss the challenges and possible research directions for ontologies in visualization to better understand the relationship between ontologies and the data analysis tasks scientists wish to support.
Abstract: In computer science, an ontology is essentially a graph-based knowledge representation in which each node corresponds to a concept and each edge specifies a relation between two concepts. Ontological development in biology can serve as a focus to discuss the challenges and possible research directions for ontologies in visualization. The principle challenges are the dynamic and evolving nature of ontologies, the ever-present issue of scale, the diversity and richness of the relationships in ontologies, and the need to better understand the relationship between ontologies and the data analysis tasks scientists wish to support. Research directions include visualizing ontologies; visualizing semantically or ontologically annotated texts, documents, and corpora; automated generation of visualizations using ontologies; and visualizing ontological context to support search. Although this discussion uses issues of ontologies in biological data visualization as a springboard, these topics are of general relevance to visualization.
TL;DR: Alex Endert's dissertation showed that user interaction embodies users' analytic process and can thus be mapped to model-steering functionality for "human-in-the-loop" system design.
Abstract: Alex Endert's dissertation "Semantic Interaction for Visual Analytics: Inferring Analytical Reasoning for Model Steering" described semantic interaction, a user interaction methodology for visual analytics (VA). It showed that user interaction embodies users' analytic process and can thus be mapped to model-steering functionality for "human-in-the-loop" system design. The dissertation contributed a framework (or pipeline) that describes such a process, a prototype VA system to test semantic interaction, and a user evaluation to demonstrate semantic interaction's impact on the analytic process. This research is influencing current VA research and has implications for future VA research.
TL;DR: A Google researcher applied a sunburst visualization to this problem, after simplifying the data into a hierarchical format, and the resulting visualization was successful in YouTube and is widely referenced and accessed.
Abstract: For many Web-based applications, it's important to be able to analyze the paths users have taken through a site--for example, to understand how they're discovering engaging content. These paths are difficult to summarize visually because of the underlying data's complexity. A Google researcher applied a sunburst visualization to this problem, after simplifying the data into a hierarchical format. The resulting visualization was successful in YouTube and is widely referenced and accessed. The code for the visualization is available as open source.
TL;DR: This technique lets users manipulate 3D objects as if they had actually grabbed them by employing a grabbing metaphor to provide the mapping protocol for finding the desired reference frame for the object.
Abstract: This technique lets users manipulate 3D objects as if they had actually grabbed them. It employs a grabbing metaphor to provide the mapping protocol for finding the desired reference frame for the object. The technique projects the user's hand into the virtual environment; a virtual-handle avatar provides feedback.
TL;DR: A proposed visual-analytics approach can reveal the parameters' impact on the trees and reveal which parameters affected the tree structures, leading to a more reliable selection of the best trees.
Abstract: Evolutionary relationships between organisms are frequently derived as phylogenetic trees inferred from multiple sequence alignments (MSAs). The MSA parameter space is exponentially large, so tens of thousands of potential trees can emerge for each dataset. A proposed visual-analytics approach can reveal the parameters' impact on the trees. Given input trees created with different parameter settings, it hierarchically clusters the trees according to their structural similarity. The most important clusters of similar trees are shown together with their parameters. This view offers interactive parameter exploration and automatic identification of relevant parameters. Biologists applied this approach to real data of 16S ribosomal RNA and protein sequences of ion channels. It revealed which parameters affected the tree structures. This led to a more reliable selection of the best trees.
TL;DR: University of Stuttgart educators have updated three computer science courses to incorporate forward-compatible OpenGL and developed an educational framework that abstracts some of modern OpenGL's difficult aspects.
Abstract: University of Stuttgart educators have updated three computer science courses to incorporate forward-compatible OpenGL. To help students, they developed an educational framework that abstracts some of modern OpenGL's difficult aspects.
TL;DR: A proposed visual-analytics pipeline for power grid management can transform approximately 100 million contingency scenarios to a manageable size and form so that grid operators can examine individual scenarios and devise preventive or mitigation strategies in a timely manner.
Abstract: Contingency analysis employs different measures to model scenarios, analyze them, and then derive the best response to any threats. A proposed visual-analytics pipeline for power grid management can transform approximately 100 million contingency scenarios to a manageable size and form. Grid operators can examine individual scenarios and devise preventive or mitigation strategies in a timely manner. Power grid engineers have applied the pipeline to a Western Electricity Coordinating Council power grid model.
TL;DR: ClaytricSurface is a shape-changeable display with dynamic stiffness control that can mold 3D shapes and apply textures to them while experiencing tactile feedback through dynamically changing stiffness.
Abstract: ClaytricSurface is a shape-changeable display with dynamic stiffness control. The prototype uses vacuum pressure control on an enclosed volume of particles. Users can mold 3D shapes and apply textures to them while experiencing tactile feedback through dynamically changing stiffness. The system's developers have added both touch input using a depth camera and peripheral devices to expand the system's practical application. They also developed applications in the form of design tools that have great entertainment potential.
TL;DR: Researchers studied how volume rendering incorporating global illumination impacted perception of bone surface features captured by x-ray computed-tomography scanners for clinical monitoring of rheumatoid arthritis patients, indicating that interactive visualization with global illumination helped the researchers derive more accurate interpretations of the image data.
Abstract: Proper lighting in rendering is essential for visualizing 3D objects, but most visualization software tools still employ simple lighting models. The advent of hardware-accelerated advanced lighting suggests that volume visualization can be truly usable for clinical work. Researchers studied how volume rendering incorporating global illumination impacted perception of bone surface features captured by x-ray computed-tomography scanners for clinical monitoring of rheumatoid arthritis patients. The results, evaluated by clinical researchers familiar with the disease and medical-image interpretation, indicate that interactive visualization with global illumination helped the researchers derive more accurate interpretations of the image data. With clinical needs and the recent advancement of volume visualization technology, this study is timely and points the way for further research.