Explaining how to play real-time strategy games

Real-time strategy games share many aspects with real situations in domains such as battle planning, air traffic control, and emergency response team management which makes them appealing test-beds for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning. End-user annotations could help to provide supplemental information for learning algorithms, especially when training data is sparse. This paper presents a formative study to uncover how experienced users explain game play in real-time strategy games. We report the results of our analysis of explanations and discuss their characteristics that could support the design of systems for use by experienced real-time strategy game users in specifying or annotating strategy-oriented behavior

Interactive visual analysis promotes exploration of long-term ecological data

Long-term ecological data are crucial in helping ecologists understand ecosystem function and environmental change. Nevertheless, these kinds of data sets are difficult to analyze because they are usually large, multivariate, and spatiotemporal. Although existing analysis tools such as statistical methods and spreadsheet software permit rigorous tests of pre-conceived hypotheses and static charts for simple data exploration, they have limited capacity to provide an overview of the data and to enable ecologists to explore data iteratively, and interactively, before committing to statistical analysis. These issues hinder how ecologists gain knowledge and generate hypotheses from long-term data. We present Ecological Distributions and Trends Explorer (EcoDATE), a web-based, visual-analysis tool that facilitates exploratory analysis of long-term ecological data (i.e., generating hypotheses as opposed to confirming hypotheses). The tool, which is publicly available online, was created and refined through a user-centered design process in which our team of ecologists and visualization researchers collaborated closely. The results of our collaboration were (1) a set of visual representation and interaction techniques well suited to communicating distribution patterns and temporal trends in ecological data sets, and (2) an understanding of processes ecologists use to explore data and generate and test hypotheses. We present three case studies to demonstrate the utility of EcoDATE and the exploratory analysis processes using long-term data on cone production, stream chemistry, and forest structure collected as part of the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest (HJA), Long Term Ecological Research (LTER), and US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station programs. We also present results from a survey of 15 participants of a working group at the 2012 LTER All Scientists Meeting that showed that users appreciated the tool for its ease of use, holistic access to large data sets, and interactivity

Fluid flow on interacting deformable surfaces

Fluid simulation on interacting deformable surfaces is a challenging problem that has many applications. In this paper, we present a framework in which artistic as well as physically realistic flows can be generated on surfaces during deformation and collision. Our simulation system provides comprehensive control over the motion and deformation of an object as well as the movement and density of the fluid on the surface. At the heart of our system is a numerical solver that allows viscous and incompressible flows to be directly generated on surfaces using concepts from differential geometry, such as geodesic polar maps and parallel transport. This solver is fast and stable even when the object undergoes deformation or collides with other surfaces. We also propose rules that allow deformation and collisions to impact fluid flows in a physically realistic manner. By combining these rules with a set of comprehensive design functionalities, we develop a system in which the user can specify shape deformation, collision, and fluid flow in a unified framework. We demonstrate the capability of our system with a number example scenarios.Keywords: surfaces, fluid simulation, parallel transport, viscosity, collision, deformatio

Building behaviors with examples

Ph.D

A Tangible Interface for High-Level Direction of Multiple Animated Characters

Many training, education, and visualization environments would benefit from realistic animated characters. Unfortunately, interfaces for character motion specification are often complex and ill-suited to non-experts. We present a tangible interface for basic character manipulation on planar surfaces. In particular, we focus on interface aspects specific to 2D gross character animation such as path and timing specification. Our approach allows for character manipulation and high-level motion specification through a natural metaphor – the figurine. We present an example interface for designing and visualizing strategy in the sport of American football and discuss usability studies of this interface. Key words: tangible interfaces, animation