Towards Automatic Feature-based Visualization

Visualizations are well suited to communicate large amounts of complex data. With increasing resolution in the spatial and temporal domain simple imaging techniques meet their limits, as it is quite difficult to display multiple variables in 3D or analyze long video sequences. Feature detection techniques reduce the data-set to the essential structures and allow for a highly abstracted representation of the data. However, current feature detection algorithms commonly rely on a detailed description of each individual feature. In this paper, we present a feature-based visualization technique that is solely based on the data. Using concepts from computational mechanics and information theory, a measure, local statistical complexity, is defined that extracts distinctive structures in the data-set. Local statistical complexity assigns each position in the (multivariate) data-set a scalar value indicating regions with extraordinary behavior. Local structures with high local statistical complexity form the features of the data-set. Volume-rendering and iso-surfacing are used to visualize the automatically extracted features of the data-set. To illustrate the ability of the technique, we use examples from diffusion, and flow simulations in two and three dimensions

Automatic generation of hardware Tree Classifiers

Machine Learning is growing in popularity and spreading across different fields for various applications. Due to this trend, machine learning algorithms use different hardware platforms and are being experimented to obtain high test accuracy and throughput. FPGAs are well-suited hardware platform for machine learning because of its re-programmability and lower power consumption. Programming using FPGAs for machine learning algorithms requires substantial engineering time and effort compared to software implementation. We propose a software assisted design flow to program FPGA for machine learning algorithms using our hardware library. The hardware library is highly parameterized and it accommodates Tree Classifiers. As of now, our library consists of the components required to implement decision trees and random forests. The whole automation is wrapped around using a python script which takes you from the first step of having a dataset and design choices to the last step of having a hardware descriptive code for the trained machine learning model

Shape: A 3D Modeling Tool for Astrophysics

We present a flexible interactive 3D morpho-kinematical modeling application for astrophysics. Compared to other systems, our application reduces the restrictions on the physical assumptions, data type and amount that is required for a reconstruction of an object's morphology. It is one of the first publicly available tools to apply interactive graphics to astrophysical modeling. The tool allows astrophysicists to provide a-priori knowledge about the object by interactively defining 3D structural elements. By direct comparison of model prediction with observational data, model parameters can then be automatically optimized to fit the observation. The tool has already been successfully used in a number of astrophysical research projects.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in the "IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics