VR-Viz: Visualization system for data visualization in VR

Recent years have seen fast growth in big data. The datasets are not only exponentially larger, but also more complex (multi-dimensional). Because of the scale and complexity of these datasets, their visualization poses significant challenges. As a solution, this thesis explores how virtual reality (VR) and 3D visualization can be used to visualize complex and large datasets, and proposes a visualization system for designing visualizations in VR. First, this thesis examines concepts of information visualization, VR, and 3D information visualization. Next, it explores visualization systems for 3D visualization and three examples of information visualization in VR and discusses their successes and short comings. Finally, in order to make VR information visualization accessible to a wider audience, a tool is introduced to simplify the process of designing information visualization in VR for beginners. The tool can also be used as a quick prototyping tool by more advanced users

Measurement and analysis of water/oil multiphase flow using electrical capacitance tomography sensor

The paper investigates the capability of using a portable 16-segmented Electrical Capacitance Tomo-graphy (ECT) sensor and a new excitation technique to measure the concentration profile of water/oil multiphase flow. The concentration profile obtained from the capacitance measurements is capable of providing images of the water and oil flow in the pipeline. The visualization results deliver information regarding the flow regime and concentration distribution of the multiphase flow. The information is able to help in designing process equipment and verifying the existing computational modeling and simu-lation techniques

New Frontiers of Quantified Self: Finding New Ways for Engaging Users in Collecting and Using Personal Data

In spite of the fast growth in the market of devices and applications that allow people to collect personal information, Quantified Self (QS) tools still present a variety of issues when they are used in everyday lives of common people. In this workshop we aim at exploring new ways for designing QS systems, by gathering different researchers in a unique place for imagining how the tracking, management, interpretation and visualization of personal data could be addressed in the future

A visual language to characterise transitions in narrative visualization

We use a taxonomy of panel-to-panel transitions in comics, refined the definition of its components to reflect the nature of data-stories in information visualization, and then, use the taxonomy in coding a number of VAST challenges videos from the last four years. We represent the use of transitions in each video graphically with a diagram that shows how the information was added incrementally in order to tell a story that answers a particular question. A number of issues have been taken into account when coding transitions in each video as well as in designing and creating the visual diagram such as, nested transitions, the use of sub-topics, and delayed transitions

Dashboard design to assess the impact of distinct data visualization techniques in the dynamic analysis of survey’s results

A study of available data visualization techniques is required to comprehensively and accurately display real-time information. Customizing existing platforms and designing new specific display formats are among the important tasks for getting an accurate view of information. In this work we have carried out a bibliographic review on visualization of data, techniques and platforms of existing Dashboards. We implemented a generic and dynamic dashboard based on information collected in real time. The objective was to assess the impact of the Data Visualization Techniques available on the developed dashboard. Therefore, Dashboard users will be able to interact with the information, accessing at an early stage a set of pre-defined charts, tables, and reports produced by the Dashboard itself. At a later stage it will be possible for users to have greater control over the presentation of the data and to customize the views presented, generating graphs, tables and reports dynamically. This implementation allows you to test an existing set of data visualization techniques and dynamically generated new forms, showing that Dashboards can become a unique and powerful means of providing information

The Rational Agent Benchmark for Data Visualization

Understanding how helpful a visualization is from experimental results is difficult because the observed performance is confounded with aspects of the study design, such as how useful the information that is visualized is for the task. We develop a rational agent framework for designing and interpreting visualization experiments. Our framework conceives two experiments with the same setup: one with behavioral agents (human subjects), the other one with a hypothetical rational agent. A visualization is evaluated by comparing the expected performance of behavioral agents to that of rational agent under different assumptions. Using recent visualization decision studies from the literature, we demonstrate how the framework can be used to pre-experimentally evaluate the experiment design by bounding the expected improvement in performance from having access to visualizations, and post-experimentally to deconfound errors of information extraction from errors of optimization, among other analyses

The visual uncertainty paradigm for controlling screen-space information in visualization

The information visualization pipeline serves as a lossy communication channel for presentation of data on a screen-space of limited resolution. The lossy communication is not just a machine-only phenomenon due to information loss caused by translation of data, but also a reflection of the degree to which the human user can comprehend visual information. The common entity in both aspects is the uncertainty associated with the visual representation. However, in the current linear model of the visualization pipeline, visual representation is mostly considered as the ends rather than the means for facilitating the analysis process. While the perceptual side of visualization is also being studied, little attention is paid to the way the visualization appears on the display. Thus, we believe there is a need to study the appearance of the visualization on a limited-resolution screen in order to understand its own properties and how they influence the way they represent the data. I argue that the visual uncertainty paradigm for controlling screen-space information will enable us in achieving user-centric optimization of a visualization in different application scenarios. Conceptualization of visual uncertainty enables us to integrate the encoding and decoding aspects of visual representation into a holistic framework facilitating the definition of metrics that serve as a bridge between the last stages of the visualization pipeline and the user's perceptual system. The goal of this dissertation is three-fold: i) conceptualize a visual uncertainty taxonomy in the context of pixel-based, multi-dimensional visualization techniques that helps systematic definition of screen-space metrics, ii) apply the taxonomy for identifying sources of useful visual uncertainty that helps in protecting privacy of sensitive data and also for identifying the types of uncertainty that can be reduced through interaction techniques, and iii) application of the metrics for designing information-assisted models that help in visualization of high-dimensional, temporal data

Cyber plaza by the Central Artery Tunnel, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 2005

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1997.Includes bibliographical references (p. 30).This thesis is a formation of a new viewpoint to perceive architectural space. It opens up a new possibility of designing architecture as information. Designing architecture does not mean designing the mass, but designing the people's perception . Human intelligence is an information process, and perceiving the space is also a brain work of information process. I propose three different kinds of information to construct the space in people's perception, namely, that of void, solid and activity information. Void information is the changing distance between the eye and solid mass in every direction. It can be quantified through an objective method in the form of graphs. Solid information is the meaning of something visible. Activity information is the meaning of human activities. Void information is an invisible vessel to contain solid and activity information. It can only be seen through the reflection of the solid mass. Visualization of the distances between the eye and solid mass helps us to see the characteristics of the void information . My design project exists in people's mind. Although my project locates in a physical place, Boston, I've made an effort to design the people's perception rather than the physicality of space. My attempt to design a perception of this space was accomplished by utilizing the light in combination with the material of the skin. The space is altered by the changing conditions of light on the building skin which has various functions.by Hyunjoon Yoo.M.Arch

Structural components of students' data-focused information visualization

Information Visualization (InfoVis), as an analytics and visualization tool, had been argued to be befitting in attending to the experience of information overload, and subsequent decision making constraint of higher education institutions’ (HEIs) decision makers.This experience is said to be as a result of increase in volume of students’ data and the limitations of the available data management tools. However, due to the diversity of domains in which application of InfoVis are demanded, designing domain-specific structural components of the intending InfoVis is compulsory, so as to address its peculiar domain problem.Adapting the generic Design Research method, we employed critical review of documentations of selected InfoVis tools and mapped the findings with the outcome of our previous investigation of the HEIs’ decision makers’ explicit knowledge preferences.This work therefore highlights the structural components of the HEIs’ students’ data-focused InfoVis