Intelligent visualisation and information presentation for civil crisis management

This paper describes an ongoing research work on developing methods for effective visualisation support for situation analysis, decision making, and communication in the course of disaster management. The major goals are to reduce the information load of the analyst, decision maker, or information recipient without omission of anything important and to ensure quick and accurate comprehending of the information. The work embraces the issues of selection of the relevant information and defining the appropriate level of detail, data preparation (aggregation and other transformations), and selection of the appropriate methods for visual representation depending on the user's tasks or communication goals, recipient's profile, and the target presentation medium. A practical outcome from the research will be a knowledge base that can be used to support analysis, decision making, and information communication in emergency situations. A great part of the knowledge, specifically, knowledge on data transformation and representation, is generic and can be used for different applications

An Analysis of Quality for Volunteered Geographic Information

In recent years there has been a growing number of online user communities engaged in the creation, visualization, and use of volunteered geographic information (VGI). These data may represent an untapped resource for researchers analyzing large-area geographic phenomena such as species distributions patterns or land and resource management issues. However very few studies have used VGI for analytic research questions as little is known about the quality of these data. An understanding of the validity of VGI is a prerequisite for further exploitation of these novel data sources in research contexts. This paper looks to identify key issues related to the credibility of VGI through a critical literature review. If the measurement of data quality for volunteered geographic data can be established in a formal framework, many new sources of information that could potentially be used to answer cross-cutting geographic research questions of interest to established communities. This low cost alternative to traditional sources of data can be used for up-to-date geographic information, if the data can be trusted

Mapping public transport stops in smartphone apps: Dynamic information visualization in the context of hiking

Public transport (PT) offers an efficient and environmentally friendly way of transportation. However, especially for leisure activities only a small fraction of the total distances traveled are accomplished with PT. One way to promote public transport usage is to improve the provision of respective information. Smartphones have revolutionized information access, allowing users to access context-specific data anytime and anywhere. Currently, diverse PT apps are available, often focusing on temporal information, particularly in urban areas. Few cater to outdoor leisure activities, and those that do often provide static transit-related data. Information needs to be tailored to individual user needs to simplify PT usage for leisure activities. Therefore, improving the visualization of PT stops in maps and their respective information is addressed in this thesis. For specification, the scenario of a hiker who wants to find a fitting PT stop to get home was chosen. A mixed method approach was applied to analyze the specific context; find possible visualization options by comparing apps; and evaluate the effectiveness of suggested improvements with a qualitative user study. Results show that current apps do not sufficiently provide dynamic visualization of information for outdoor activities. Information related to the spatio-temporal proximity of PT stops and their connections was found to be particularly effective for the decision-making process. The results suggest that even more additional information could enhance the experience by enabling users to decide according to their personal preferences

Situated navigation support for heterogeneous large crowds via augmented signage

PhD ThesisNavigating unfamiliar places is a common problem people face, and there is a wealth of commercial and research-based applications particularly for mobile devices that provide support in these settings. While many of these solutions work well on an individual level, they are less well suited for very crowded situations, e.g. sports matches, festivals and fairs, or religious events such as pilgrimages. In a large crowd, attending to a mobile device can be hazardous, the underlying technology might not scale well, and some people might be excluded due to not having access to a mobile device. Public signage does not suffer from these issues, and consequently, people frequently rely on signage in crowded settings. However, a key disadvantage of public signage is that it does not provide personalised navigation support. We have therefore investigated augmented signage as a navigation support system for use in large crowds. This thesis investigates the issues of guidance by augmented displays and how this can be made more suitable for people who navigate in groups in unfamiliar areas. In this context we have undertaken three studies as examples to explore how augmented displays can provide aid to people in crowded places. In the first study, we investigated the question of whether the use of dynamic public signage can help pilgrims count or remember the Tawaf rounds while walking around the Ka’bah. We analysed the current situation in Mecca based on a literature review and a series of interviews with pilgrims, who had completed at least one pilgrimage (already visited Mecca). We then presented a prototypical dynamic signage and reported on a user study we conducted in a realistic setting in order to evaluate the system. The results suggest that dynamic signage may be a feasible option to improve the safety of pilgrims in Mecca. In the second study, we introduced a scalable signage-based approach and present results from a comparison study contrasting two designs for augmented signage with a base approach. The results provide evidence that such a system could be easily useable, may reduce task load, and could improve navigation performance. In the final study, we developed public displays (static and dynamic signage) and investigated the ability of using such displays to assist pilgrims of Mecca to find each other after becoming separated while performing rituals inside the Haram (e.g. Tawaf pillar). Once again here we have addressed the issue through a series of interviews with people who had experienced pilgrimage before. Then we constructed a full idea that allowed us to design the initial system and presented it in a focus group session to gain feedback and redesign the system. Afterwards, we conducted a lab-based user study. The results we obtained suggest that a person can extract information (by reading the dynamic signage), also results showed that users were able to remember their information (whilst completing some distraction tasks), and then they completed the static signs tasks successfully. Generally results showed that the system can indicate people to the right place where they can meet again after becoming separated. In general, these results provided good evidence that augmented signage supported by colour and visual codes might provide considerable help in situations with large and heterogeneous crowds. It might be developed and used in different settings for provisional navigation information and allow multi-users to extract their personalised information individually

Técnicas de Realidade Aumentada para Emergências

Numa altura em que os dispositivos móveis estão a afirmar-se um pouco por todo o mundo e a desempenhar cada vez mais funções, é com naturalidade que se assiste a uma progressiva utilização destes aparelhos em áreas e contextos mais abrangentes. Perante uma situação de emergência, cada elemento de resposta deve atuar de forma rápida e precisa. O auxílio de um dispositivo móvel que lhe possa proporcionar uma visão adequada do meio que o rodeia, e que lhe permita trocar informações com os restantes membros constituintes da sua equipa, pode evitar prejuízos e até mesmo salvar muitas vidas. O trabalho desenvolvido corresponde a uma extensão do protótipo funcional de uma aplicação móvel previamente desenvolvido no âmbito do projeto (THEMIS), que concilia um sistema georreferenciado com técnicas de realidade aumentada de forma a servir as necessidades dos operacionais em situações de emergência. A proposta de solução não só implementa novas funcionalidades, como faz uso de técnicas para maximizar o desempenho com que o utilizador tira partido das já existentes. A organização adequada do fluxo de dados que é exibido vai ao encontro do objetivo proposto. A dissertação conta com três avaliações de usabilidade ao novo protótipo desenvolvido, desempenhado por cadetes da Marinha Portuguesa

Visualização da relevância da informação geográfica em aplicações móveis

Tese de mestrado em Engenharia Informática (Sistemas de Informação), apresentada à Universidade de Lisboa, através da Faculdade de Ciências, 2011A utilização da informação geográfica a partir de dispositivos móveis é uma área em crescente expansão e, por conseguinte, na última década, tem-se assistido a um crescimento no desenvolvimento de serviços móveis utilizando a informação geográfica, tais como serviços baseados em localização (LBS – Location Based Services) ou serviços de geovisualização móvel. Apesar deste crescimento, existem ainda diversos desafios por investigar na área da visualização de informação em dispositivos móveis. A pequena dimensão do ecrã destes dispositivos conduz a uma necessidade de filtrar e disponibilizar apenas a informação mais relevante para o utilizador. Adicionalmente, essa informação está frequentemente localizada fora da área visível no ecrã, aumentando a carga cognitiva do utilizador na realização de tarefas de pesquisa e tornando complexa a tarefa de navegação. Para a resolução do primeiro problema, têm sido propostos mecanismos para seleccionar a informação relevante baseada em informação sobre o contexto e as preferências do utilizador. Contudo, não é dada qualquer informação sobre a relevância dos objectos de interesse que se encontrem fora da área visível. Relativamente à segunda problemática, têm sido propostas algumas técnicas para a sinalização de objectos fora do ecrã, mas nenhuma delas explora a relevância dos objectos. Este trabalho descreve e avalia a técnica de visualização, denominada HaloDot, que combina a sinalização e identificação de objectos fora da área visível no ecrã (off-screen) com visualização de relevância. Os atributos de relevância baseados na cor e na transparência foram ainda aplicados a outras técnicas de visualização off-screen e comparadas com o HaloDot. Os resultados das avaliações efectuadas sugerem que a utilização da combinação da cor com a transparência é eficiente para a representação da relevância. Adicionalmente, é necessário considerar, pelo menos, três factores na decisão de escolha da técnica de visualização off-screen, nomeadamente: o número de pontos de interesse existentes, a proximidade dos pontos de interesse da área visível no ecrã e a simbologia utilizada para a representação dos pontos de interesse.The use of the geographic information from mobile devices is an area that is becoming increasingly widespread and, therefore, in the last decade, there has been a growth on the development of mobile services using geographical information, like Location Based Services (LBS) or mobile geovisualization services. Despite this growth, there are still several challenges that are worth to investigate on the field of information visualization on mobile devices. The small dimension of these devices‟ screens requires filtering mechanisms to provide only the most relevant information to the user. This information is often located off-screen, increasing the user's cognitive workload to perform search tasks and making the navigational task complex. To solve the first problem several mechanisms have been proposed to select the relevant information, based on information about the context and the user's preferences. However, it does not provide any information about the relevance of points of interest located off-screen. To solve the second problem some techniques have been proposed for the signalization of off-screen objects. None of them, however, explores the relevance of those objects. This work describes and evaluates a visualization technique, called HaloDot, which combines the signalization and identification of off-screen objects with the visualization of their relevance. HaloDot uses color and transparency to express the relevance of off-screen objects. These graphical attributes were also used in other off-screen visualization techniques, which were compared with HaloDot. The results of the performed evaluation suggest that the use of the combination of colour and transparency is efficient for the representation of the relevance. Additionally, it is necessary to take into account three factors to select an off-screen visualization technique, namely: the number of existing points of interest, the proximity of the points of interest to the on-screen area and the simbology used for the representation of the points of interest

On the relation between body and movement space representation: an experimental investigation on spinal cord injured people

Body Representation (BR) and Movement Space Perception (MSP) are fundamental for human beings in order to move in space and interact with object s and other people. Both BR and space representation change after spinal cord injuries in complete paraplegic individuals (CPP), who suffer from lower limbs paralysis and anesthesia. To date, the interaction between BR and MSP in paraplegic individuals rem ains unexplored. In two consecutive experiments, we tested I ) if the individual\u2019s wheelchair is embodied in BR; and ii) if the embodied wheelchair modifies the MSP. For the first question a speeded detection task was used. Participants had to respond to v isual stimuli flashing on their trunk, legs or wheelchair. In three counterbalanced conditions across participant, they took part to the experiment while: 1) sitting in their wheelchair, 2) in another wheelchair, or 3) with the LEDs on a wooden bar. To in dicate the embodiment, there was no difference in the CPP\u2019s responses for LEDs on the body and personal wheelchair while these were slower in other conditions After this, while sitting in their or another wheelchair, CPPs were asked to judge the slope of a ramp rendered in immersive virtual reality and to estimate the distance of a flag positioned over the ramp. When on their own wheelchair, CPPs perceived the flag closer than in the other wheelchair. These results indicate that the continuous use of a too l induces embodiment and that this i mpact on the perception of MSP

Simbologia em realidade aumentada móvel

Tese de mestrado, Engenharia Informática (Sistemas de Informação), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2016A Realidade Aumentada (RA) em dispositivos móveis é uma área em crescente expansão. Na última década, tem-se assistido a um desenvolvimento acentuado de aplicações que fazem uso desta tecnologia de modo a acrescentar informação útil ao utilizador relativamente ao ambiente que o rodeia. No entanto, a utilização da RA em dispositivos de pequenas dimensões coloca alguns desafios. Por exemplo, ao visualizar pontos de interesse, não existe controlo prévio sobre o seu número e localização, podendo ocorrer a sobreposição de vários símbolos. Por outro lado, a adição de informação à imagem real não tem que ficar confinada aos objetos presentes no campo de visão do utilizador. A inclusão de pistas sobre a existência de objetos relevantes fora do campo de visão (objetos off-screen) é um contributo importante para a navegação pelo espaço de informação. Outro aspecto a ter em conta é a capacidade de expressar a relevância da informação, ou seja, adaptar a representação de acordo com as preferências do utilizador. Este trabalho propõe soluções para os problemas mencionados, concretizadas no protótipo IAR. Este protótipo inclui técnicas para reduzir a sobreposição¸ ˜ao de simbologia, representar a relevância dos objetos e incluir pistas para objetos off-screen em ambientes de realidade aumentada móvel. A avaliação com utilizadores revelou que as técnicas propostas pelo IAR para sinalização off-screen, representação de relevância e tratamento de sobreposições tornaram a navegação dos utilizadores mais simples e eficiente. A técnica de visualização que usa todas as funcionalidades implementadas foi a preferida pelos utilizadores e revelou o melhor desempenho, enquanto que a técnica de visualização que faz apenas uso da RA sem qualquer funcionalidade foi a que obteve pior classificação e a que mostrou resultados mais ineficazes.Augmented Reality (AR) on mobile devices is an expanding area. In the last decade, we have seen a huge growth in the development of applications that use this technology to add useful information to the user concerning the environment that surrounds it. However, the use of AR in small devices is challenging. For example, when visualizing points of interest, there is no prior control over their number and location, thus, the symbols may overlap. On the other hand, the addition of information to the real image does not have to be confined to objects in the user’s field of view. The inclusion of clues about the existence of relevant objects outside the field of view (off-screen objects) is an important contribution for navigation through the space of information available to user. Another aspect to keep in mind is the ability to express the information’s relevance, that is, adapt the representation according to user’s preferences. This project proposes solutions for the mentioned problems, achieved in the IAR prototype. This prototype includes techniques to reduce symbols overlapping, represent relevance of objects and include clues for off-screen objects in mobile augmented reality environments. It was conducted an evaluation with users that revealed that the techniques proposed by the IAR for off-screen signalization, relevance representation and symbols overlapping treatment have made the navigation more simple and efficient. The visualization technique that uses all the features implemented was the preferred and presented a better performance, while the visualization technique that just makes use of AR without any added functionality was the one that presented more ineffective results

Map-based interaction with trajectory data

Tese de doutoramento, Informática (Engenharia Informática), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2017With the increasing popularity of location based services and mobile tracking technologies, the collection of large amounts of spatio-temporal data became an increasingly common, easier, and more reliable task. In turn, this has emphasized the possibility of analysing georeferenced information, particularly associated with human trajectory data, to identify and understand movement patterns and activities, ultimately, supporting decision making in various contexts. In order to properly analyse and understand the spatio-temporal and the thematic properties associated with these data, adequate visualization techniques are needed. Due to the spatial properties of trajectories, map-based techniques, such as 2D static maps or 3D space-time cubes (STCs) are considered as essential tools for their visualization. However, despite the increasing number of visualization systems, the study regarding their usability, alongside the role of the human user, sometimes with a limited background in data visualization and analysis, are often neglected. In addition to the somewhat disperse, and sometimes even contradictory, results in the literature, these factors, ultimately, emphasize the lack of knowledge to support the choice of particular visualizations, and their design, in different types of tasks. This dissertation addresses these issues through three main sets of contributions, focusing on inexperienced users, in terms of data visualization and analysis: i) the characterization of the dis/advantages of existing map-based techniques (2D static maps and STCs), depending on the types of visual analysis tasks and the focus of the analysis; ii) the improvement of existing visualization techniques, either through the inclusion of additional spatial cues within the STC, or combining both types of techniques in various ways; and iii) the identification of design guidelines for trajectory data visualization, describing various considerations/criteria for the selection of different map-based visualization techniques and their possible interactive features