Text in Visualization: Extending the Visualization Design Space

This thesis is a systematic exploration and expansion of the design space of data visualization specifically with regards to text. A critical analysis of text in data visualizations reveals gaps in existing frameworks and the use of text in practice. A cross-disciplinary review across fields such as typography, cartography and technical applications yields typographic techniques to encode data into text and provides the scope for the expanded design space. Mapping new attributes, techniques and considerations back to well understood visualization principles organizes the design space of text in visualization. This design space includes: 1) text as a primary data type literally encoded into alphanumeric glyphs, 2) typographic attributes, such as bold and italic, capable of encoding additional data onto literal text, 3) scope of mark, ranging from individual glyphs, syllables and words; to sentences, paragraphs and documents, and 4) layout of these text elements applicable most known visualization techniques and text specific techniques such as tables. This is the primary contribution of this thesis (Part A and B). Then, this design space is used to facilitate the design, implementation and evaluation of new types of visualization techniques, ranging from enhancements of existing techniques, such as, extending scatterplots and graphs with literal marks, stem & leaf plots with multivariate glyphs and broader scope, and microtext line charts; to new visualization techniques, such as, multivariate typographic thematic maps; text formatted to facilitate skimming; and proportionally encoding quantitative values in running text – all of which are new contributions to the field (Part C). Finally, a broad evaluation across the framework and the sample visualizations with cross-discipline expert critiques and a metrics based approach reveals some concerns and many opportunities pointing towards a breadth of future research work now possible with this new framework. (Part D and E)

Ontological foundations for structural conceptual models

In this thesis, we aim at contributing to the theory of conceptual modeling and ontology representation. Our main objective here is to provide ontological foundations for the most fundamental concepts in conceptual modeling. These foundations comprise a number of ontological theories, which are built on established work on philosophical ontology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of language and linguistics. Together these theories amount to a system of categories and formal relations known as a foundational ontolog

Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED11):Book of Abstracts

The ICED series of conferences is the Design Society's "flagship" event. ICED11 took place on August 15-18, 2011, at the campus of the Danish Technical University in Lyngby/Copenhagen, Denmark. The Proceedings of the conference are published in 10 individual volumes, arranged according to topics. All volumes of the Proceedings may be purchased individually through Amazon and other on-line booksellers. For members of the Design Society, all papers are available on this website. The Programme and Abstract Book is publically available for download

New Trends in Environmental Engineering, Agriculture, Food Production, and Analysis

This Special Issue presents the latest advances in agriculture, aquaculture, food technology and environmental protection and engineering, discussing, among others, the following issues: new technologies in water, stormwater and wastewater treatment; water saving, lake restoration; new sludge and waste management systems; biodiesel production from animal fat waste; the microbiological quality of compound fish feeds for aquaculture; the role of technological processes to improve food quality and safety; new trends in the analysis of food and food components including in vitro, in vivo, and in silico analyses; and functional and structural aspects of bioactivities of food molecules

Facilitating the development of location-based experiences

Location-based experiences depend on the availability and reliability of wireless infrastructures such as GPS, Wi-Fi, or mobile phone networks; but these technologies are not universally available everywhere and anytime. Studies of deployed experiences have shown that the characteristics of wireless infrastructures, especially their limited coverage and accuracy, have a major impact on the performance of an experience. It is in the designers’ interest to be aware of technological restrictions to their work. Current state of the art authoring tools for location-based experiences implement one common overarching model: the idea of taking a map of the physical area in which the experience is to take place and then somehow placing virtual trigger zones on top of it. This model leaves no space for technological shortcomings and assumes a perfect registration between the real and the virtual. In order to increase the designers’ awareness of the technology, this thesis suggests revealing the wireless infrastructures at authoring time through appropriate tools and workflows. This is thought to aid the designers in better understanding the characteristics of the underlying technology and thereby enable them to deal with potential problems before their work is deployed to the public. This approach was studied in practice by working with two groups of professional artists who built two commercially commissioned location-based experiences, and evaluated using qualitative research methods. The first experience is a pervasive game for mobile phones called ‘Love City’ that relies on cellular positioning. The second experience is a pervasive game for cyclists called ‘Rider Spoke’ that relies on Wi-Fi positioning. The evaluation of these two experiences revealed the importance of an integrated suite of tools that spans indoors and outdoors, and which supports the designers in better understanding the location mechanism that they decided to work with. It was found that designers can successfully create their experiences to deal with patchy, coarse grained, and varying wireless networks as long as they are made aware of the characteristics

Facilitating the development of location-based experiences

Location-based experiences depend on the availability and reliability of wireless infrastructures such as GPS, Wi-Fi, or mobile phone networks; but these technologies are not universally available everywhere and anytime. Studies of deployed experiences have shown that the characteristics of wireless infrastructures, especially their limited coverage and accuracy, have a major impact on the performance of an experience. It is in the designers’ interest to be aware of technological restrictions to their work. Current state of the art authoring tools for location-based experiences implement one common overarching model: the idea of taking a map of the physical area in which the experience is to take place and then somehow placing virtual trigger zones on top of it. This model leaves no space for technological shortcomings and assumes a perfect registration between the real and the virtual. In order to increase the designers’ awareness of the technology, this thesis suggests revealing the wireless infrastructures at authoring time through appropriate tools and workflows. This is thought to aid the designers in better understanding the characteristics of the underlying technology and thereby enable them to deal with potential problems before their work is deployed to the public. This approach was studied in practice by working with two groups of professional artists who built two commercially commissioned location-based experiences, and evaluated using qualitative research methods. The first experience is a pervasive game for mobile phones called ‘Love City’ that relies on cellular positioning. The second experience is a pervasive game for cyclists called ‘Rider Spoke’ that relies on Wi-Fi positioning. The evaluation of these two experiences revealed the importance of an integrated suite of tools that spans indoors and outdoors, and which supports the designers in better understanding the location mechanism that they decided to work with. It was found that designers can successfully create their experiences to deal with patchy, coarse grained, and varying wireless networks as long as they are made aware of the characteristics

Paradoxien des Digital Turn in der Architektur 1990–2015. Von den Verlockungen des Organischen: digitales Entwerfen zwischen informellem Denken und biomorphem Resultat

Vor dem Hintergrund der Einführung des Computers und der damit verbundenen Digitalisierung in der Architektur mit ihrer breiten Anwendung in den 1990er Jahren geht die Arbeit von der Frage aus, warum es im Formbildungsprozess eine Diskrepanz zwischen informellem Denken und biomorphem Resultat gibt. Es werden Paradoxien aufgedeckt, deren Fehlschlüsse zu einer Vielfalt von digitalen Strömungen bei gleichzeitiger Vereinheitlichung der Ausdrucksmittel führten. Im Mittelpunkt steht eine vergleichende und disziplinübergreifende Gegenüberstellung informeller und biomorpher Ansätze. Der informelle Ansatz findet seinen Ursprung im Konzept des Formlosen bei Georges Bataille in den 1920er Jahren und in der informellen Kunst in den 1950er/1960er Jahren. Der biomorphe Ansatz präsentiert sich in dieser Arbeit durch den Nachweis der Verlockungen, aufgrund derer die Architektur die Natur immer wieder als Vorbild nimmt. Es wird aufgezeigt, wo der aktuelle Architekturdiskurs in der Vermischung beider Ansätze feststeckt. Die Konklusion und der Ausblick bilden den Abschluss, in dem die "Unfreiheit" des Programmierens mit dem Wesen der Unbestimmtheit in einer postdigitalen Ära zusammengedacht wird. Dabei wird eine Antwort auf die Frage gegeben, warum sich das digitale Entwerfen vielfach einer biomorphen Formensprache bedient und wie ein Weg aussehen kann, der aus dieser Sackgasse herausführt