DevLan/vispubs huggingface dataset:
Subverting structure: data-driven diagram generation
Authors: Gene Golovchinsky, Klaus Reichenberger, Thomas Kamps
Published at Vis, 1995

Diagrams are data representations that convey information predominantly through combinations of graphical elements rather than through other channels such as text or interaction. We have implemented a prototype called AVE (Automatic Visualization Environment) that generates diagrams automatically based on a generative theory of diagram design. According to this theory, diagrams are constructed based on the data to be visualized rather than by selection from a predefined set of diagrams. This approach can be applied to knowledge represented by semantic networks. We give a brief introduction to the underlying theory, then describe the implementation and finally discuss strategies for extending the algorithm.
Sweeping simplices: a fast iso-surface extraction algorithm for unstructured grids
Authors: Han-Wei Shen, Christopher R. Johnson 0001
Published at Vis, 1995

Presents an algorithm that accelerates the extraction of iso-surfaces from unstructured grids by avoiding the traversal of the entire set of cells in the volume. The algorithm consists of a sweep algorithm and a data decomposition scheme. The sweep algorithm incrementally locates intersected elements, and the data decomposition scheme restricts the algorithm's worst-case performance. For data sets consisting of hundreds of thousands of elements, our algorithm can reduce the cell traversal time by more than 90% over the naive iso-surface extraction algorithm, thus facilitating interactive probing of scalar fields for large-scale problems on unstructured three-dimensional grids.
Tensor product surfaces guided by minimal surface area triangulations
Authors: John K. Johnstone, Kenneth R. Sloan
Published at Vis, 1995

Presents a method for constructing tensor product Bezier surfaces from contour (cross-section) data. Minimal area triangulations are used to guide the surface construction, and the final surface reflects the optimality of the triangulation. The resulting surface differs from the initial triangulation in two important ways: it is smooth (as opposed to the piecewise planar triangulation), and it is in tensor product form (as opposed to the irregular triangular mesh). The surface reconstruction is efficient because we do not require an exact minimal surface. The triangulations are used as strong hints, but no more than that. The method requires the computation of both open and closed isoparametric curves of the surface, using triangulations as a guide. These isoparametric curves form a tensor product Bezier surface. We show how to control sampling density by filling and pruning isoparametric curves, for accuracy and economy. A rectangular grid of points is produced that is compatible with the expected format for a tensor product surface interpolation, so that a host of well-supported methods are available to generate and manipulate the surface.
Turbulent flow visualization in computational and experimental hydraulics
Authors: Arthur E. Mynett, I. Ari Sadarjoen, A. J. S. Hin
Published at Vis, 1995

Many practical problems in open channel hydraulics that were traditionally investigated in hydraulic model experiments, are nowadays being solved by using computational fluid dynamics. However, in order to interpret computational results, there is a clear preference among scientists and engineers for visualization in analogy with experimental techniques. One such technique, particle tracing, enables a dynamic (Lagrangian) interpretation of a statically (Eulerian) computed vector field. However, quite often the emphasis in particle tracing is only on the mean flow properties, while effects due to dispersion and mixing are often not accounted for. Hence turbulent flow characteristics have to be incorporated in a visualization system for practical hydraulic engineering problems. The particle tracing technique presented in this case study has been specifically developed to combine both mean and fluctuating velocity vectors, thus simulating stochastic perturbations around mean flow conditions. A number of cases are presented that demonstrate the practical applicability of advanced visualization techniques in realistic engineering studies.
Unsteady flow volumes
Authors: Barry G. Becker, Nelson L. Max, David A. Lane
Published at Vis, 1995

Flow volumes are extended for use in unsteady (time-dependent) flows. The resulting unsteady flow volumes are the 3D analogs of streaklines. There are few examples where methods other than particle tracing have been used to visualize time-varying flows. Since particle paths can become convoluted in time, there are additional considerations to be made when extending any visualization technique to unsteady flows. We present some solutions to the problems which occur in subdivision, rendering and system design. We apply the unsteady flow volumes to a variety of field types, including moving multi-zoned curvilinear grids.
Vector plots for irregular grids
Authors: Don Dovey
Published at Vis, 1995

A standard method for visualizing vector fields consists of drawing many small "glyphs" to represent the field. This paper extends the technique from regular to curvilinear and unstructured grids. In order to achieve a uniform density of vector glyphs on nonuniformly spaced grids, the paper describes two approaches to resampling the grid data. One of the methods, an element-based resampling, can be used to visualize vector fields at arbitrary surfaces within three-dimensional grids.
Virtual GIS: a real-time 3D geographic information system
Authors: David Koller, Peter Lindstrom 0001, William Ribarsky, Larry F. Hodges, Nickolas Faust, Gregory A. Turner
Published at Vis, 1995

Advances in computer graphics hardware and algorithms, visualization, and interactive techniques for analysis offer the components for a highly integrated, efficient real-time 3D Geographic Information System. We have developed "Virtual GIS", a system with truly immersive capability for navigating and understanding complex and dynamic terrain-based databases. The system provides the means for visualizing terrain models consisting of elevation and imagery data, along with GIS raster layers, protruding features, buildings, vehicles, and other objects. We have implemented window-based and virtual reality versions and in both cases provide a direct manipulation, visual interface for accessing the GIS data. Unique terrain data structures and algorithms allow rendering of large, high resolution datasets at interactive rates.
Visualization for aerodynamic design of helicopter rotor blades
Authors: G. David Kerlick
Published at Vis, 1995

Visualization, animation, and simulation techniques are applied to the problem of rotor design for helicopters. Periodic unsteady experimental velocity data (laser Doppler velocimetry or LDV) in two dimensions and velocity data derived from simulated vortex systems in three dimensions are compared using the same visual tools. Animations show the development of rotor wake systems and induced velocities over time. Modified particle trace integration schemes are used to calculate steady streamlines and unsteady particle paths for both kinds of data. In an extension of this work, a virtual environment (VE) system was used to view the wake vortex system and an interactive probe was used to explore the induced velocity field. Future work will enable interactive visual debugging and simulation steering.
Visualization of biological sequence similarity search results
Authors: Ed H. Chi, Phillip Barry, Elizabeth Shoop, John V. Carlis, Ernest F. Retzel, John Riedl
Published at Vis, 1995

Biological sequence similarity analysis presents visualization challenges, primarily because of the massive amounts of discrete, multi dimensional data. Genomic data generated by molecular biologists is analyzed by algorithms that search for similarity to known sequences in large genomic databases. The output from these algorithms can be several thousand pages of text, and is difficult to analyze because of its length and complexity. We developed and implemented a novel graphical representation for sequence similarity search results, which visually reveals features that are difficult to find in textual reports. The method opens new possibilities in the interpretation of this discrete, multidimensional data by enabling interactive investigation of the graphical representation.
Visualization of high speed aerodynamic configuration design
Authors: Monika Hannemann, Helmut Sobieczky
Published at Vis, 1995

Three topics of aerodynamic research at DLR are chosen to illustrate the need for visualization. These include aircraft configuration design variations, adaptation devices and unsteady flow simulation in the transonic, the supersonic and the hypersonic speed regime call for the combined use of a geometry generator, a powerful graphic system and video technology. Projects currently under investigation are illustrated and generic case studies are presented.
Visualizing the tracking and diving behavior of marine mammals: a case study
Authors: Guy W. Oliver
Published at Vis, 1995

A new method of tracking free ranging marine mammals has been developed which employs a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver to accurately fix an animal's position when it surfaces and a tri axial magnetometer and velocity time depth recorder to track the animals underwater movements between surfacings in 3 dimensions. Concurrent with the development of the electronics of this movement and position tracking (MAP) tracking system has been the development of ways to analyze data from the MAP system. Spray rendering has been used to visualize the data and to combine it with environmental data allowing biologists view the animals activity in an environmental context. Considerable effort has been has been made to incorporate estimations of uncertainty and ways of minimizing it into our visualizations of the data.
Volume-based reasoning and visualization of diecastability
Authors: Roni Yagel, Shao-Chiung Lu, Alec B. Rebello, Richard Allen Miller
Published at Vis, 1995

Because of the nature of the die casting process, the part geometry severely restricts the die geometry and hence affects the quality of the part. However, as is often the case in other manufacturing processes, diecastings are currently designed purely based on their function. The manufacturability of the diecastings is not considered until the design has been nearly completed and detailed. This is due to the design support limitations of current CAE tools. We present a new volume-based approach to support diecastability evaluation, especially in preliminary design. Our approach can be applied to arbitrarily shaped parts without pre-defined feature libraries. The focus is on the identification of geometric characteristics, e.g. heavy mass regions, that could be responsible for thermal-related part defects. A distance transform with city-block metric is used to extract this geometric property. Volume visualization techniques are also adopted to allow users to visualize the results in a clear and precise way.
Voxel based object simplification
Authors: Taosong He, Lichan Hong, Arie E. Kaufman, Amitabh Varshney, Sidney W. Wang
Published at Vis, 1995

Presents a simple, robust and practical method for object simplification for applications where gradual elimination of high-frequency details is desired. This is accomplished by sampling and low-pass filtering the object into multi-resolution volume buffers and applying the marching cubes algorithm to generate a multi-resolution triangle-mesh hierarchy. Our method simplifies the genus of objects and can also help existing object simplification algorithms achieve better results. At each level of detail, a multi-layered mesh can be used for an optional and efficient antialiased rendering.
Case study. A WWW viewpoint on scientific visualization: an EPA case study for technology transfer
Authors: Theresa-Marie Rhyne
Published at InfoVis, 1995

The paper examines how to provide scientific visualization capabilities to environmental scientists, policy analysts and decision makers with personal computers (PCs) on their desktops. An approach for using the World Wide Web (WWW) for disseminating knowledge on scientific visualization and for intelligent access to visualization capabilities on high performance (UNIX) workstations is outlined.
Case study. Narcissus: visualising information
Authors: Robert J. Hendley, Nick S. Drew, Andrew Wood, Russell Beale
Published at InfoVis, 1995

It is becoming increasingly important that support is provided for users who are dealing with complex information spaces. The need is driven by the growing number of domains where there is a requirement for users to understand, navigate and manipulate large sets of computer based data; by the increasing size and complexity of this information and by the pressures to use this information efficiently. The paradigmatic example is the World Wide Web, but other domains include software systems, information systems and concurrent engineering. One approach to providing this support is to provide sophisticated visualisation tools which lead the users to form an intuitive understanding of the structure and behaviour of their domain and which provide mechanisms which allow them to manipulate objects within their system. The paper describes such a tool and a number of visualisation techniques that it implements.
Case study. Visualising cyberspace: information visualisation in the Harmony Internet browser
Authors: K. Andrews
Published at InfoVis, 1995

The explosive growth of information systems on the Internet has clearly demonstrated the need to organise, filter, and present information in ways which allow users to cope with the sheer quantities of information available. The scope for visualisation of Gopher and WWW spaces is restricted by the limitations of their respective data models. The far richer data model supported by the Hyper-G Internet information system is exploited by its Harmony client to provide a number of tightly-coupled, two- and three-dimensional visualisation and navigational facilities, which help provide location feedback and alleviate user disorientation.
Case study: 3D displays of Internet traffic
Authors: Kenneth C. Cox, Stephen G. Eick
Published at InfoVis, 1995

The explosive growth in world-wide communications, especially the Internet, has highlighted the need for techniques to visualize network traffic. The traditional node and link network displays work well for small datasets but become visually cluttered and uninterpretable for large datasets. A natural 3D metaphor for displaying world-wide network data is to position the nodes on a globe and draw arcs between them coding the traffic. This technique has several advantages of over the traditional 2D displays, it naturally reduces line crossing clutter, provides an intuitive model for navigation and indication of time, and retains the geographic context. Coupling these strengths with some novel interaction techniques involving the globe surface translucency and arc heights illustrates the usefulness for this class of displays.
Case study: an empirical investigation of thumbnail image recognition
Authors: C. A. Burton, L. J. Johnston, Liz Sonenberg
Published at InfoVis, 1995

The use of thumbnails (i.e., miniatures) in the user-interface of image databases allows searching and selection of images without the need for naming policies. Treating parent images prior to reduction with edge-detecting smoothing, lossy image compression, or static codebook compression resulted in thumbnails where the distortion caused by reduction was lessened. An experiment assessing these techniques found resulting thumbnails could be recognised more quickly and accurately than thumbnails of the same parent images that had been reduced without treatment. This pretreatment in thumbnail creation is offered as an improvement.
Case study: fishing for information on the Internet
Authors: R. Mitchell, David S. Day, Lynette Hirschman
Published at InfoVis, 1995

As the Internet continues to grow, the amount of accessible information becomes increasingly vast. Search tools exist that allow users to find relevant information. However, a search can often produce such a large amount of data that it becomes hard to ferret out the most appropriate and highest quality information. In addition, some search tools lose valuable information when displaying the results to the user. The paper describes a search visualization tool, called FISH, for viewing hierarchically structured information and managing information overload. FISH (Forager for the Information Super Highway) allows users to visualize the results of search requests across large document spaces in a way that preserves the structure of the information space. FISH displays the returned documents as rectangles, using a combination of order, indentation, size, and color to denote document hierarchy, the score of the documents with respect to the search, and other data attributes. In addition, the user can navigate through the document space for in-depth probing and refinement.
Case study: visualizing Internet resources
Authors: Nahum D. Gershon, Joshua LeVasseur, Joel Winstead, J. Croall, A. Pernicks, William Ruh
Published at InfoVis, 1995

The goal is to improve the ability of people from all walks of life and interests to access, search, and use the information distributed in Internet resources. The process of interacting with information resources starts with browsing, continues with digesting and assimilating pieces of information, terminates with generation of new information, and begins anew with analysis of pre-existing and new information. Our approach is user-centric-taking users needs into account by allowing them to interact with the information contained in large arrays of documents. The visualization process is an integral part of the overall process. We have covered three related categories in this methodology. The first one is browsing through the World-Wide Web (WWW) hyperspace without becoming lost, based on a visual representation of the hyperspace hierarchical structure (hyperspace view). The second category is overcoming the rigidity of the WWW by allowing the user to construct interactively and visually a personal hyperspace of information, linking the documents according to the application or problem domain, or to the user's own perception, experience, culture, or way of thinking. The third category includes discovery and analysis of new information and relationships in retrieved documents by aggregating relevant information and representing it visually.
IVEE: an Information Visualization and Exploration Environment
Authors: Christopher Ahlberg, Erik Wistrand
Published at InfoVis, 1995

The Information Visualization and Exploration Environment (NEE) is a system for automatic creation of dynamic queries applications. IVEE imports database relations and automatically creates environments holding visualizations and query devices. IVEE offers multiple visualizations such as maps and starfields, and multiple query devices, such as sliders, alphasliders, and toggles. Arbitrary graphical objects can be attached to database objects in visualizations. Multiple visualizations may be active simultaneously. Users can interactively lay out and change between types of query devices. Users may retrieve details-on-demand by clicking on visualization objects. An HTML file may be provided along with the database, specifying how details-on-demand information should be presented, allowing for presentation of multimedia information in database objects. Finally, multiple IVEE clients running on separate workstations on a network can communicate by letting one user's actions affect the visualization in an another IVEE client.
Research report. DataSpace: 3-D visualizations of large databases
Authors: Vinod Anupam, Shaul Dar, Ted Leibfried, Eric Petajan
Published at InfoVis, 1995

DataSpace is a system for interactive 3-D visualization and analysis of large databases. DataSpace utilizes the display space by placing panels of information, possibly generated by different visualization applications, in a 3-D graph layout, and providing continuous navigation facilities. Selective rearrangements and transparency can be used to reduce occlusion or to compare or merge a set of images (e.g. line graphs or scatter plots) that are aligned and stacked in depth. A prototype system supporting the basic 3-D graphic operations (layout, zoom, rotation, translation, transparency) has been implemented. We provide several illustrative examples of DataSpace displays taken from the current system. We present the 3-D display paradigm, describe the query, layout and rendering steps required to create a display, and discuss some performance issues.
Research report. Interacting with huge hierarchies: beyond cone trees
Authors: S. Jeromy Carrière, Rick Kazman
Published at InfoVis, 1995

The paper describes an implementation of a tool for visualizing and interacting with huge information hierarchies, and some preliminary empirical evaluation of the tool's efficacy. Existing systems for visualizing huge hierarchies using cone trees "break down" once the hierarchy to be displayed exceeds roughly 1000 nodes, due to increasing visual clutter. The paper describes a system called fsviz which visualizes arbitrarily large hierarchies while retaining user control. This is accomplished by augmenting cone trees with several graphical and interaction techniques: usage-based filtering, animated zooming, hand-coupled rotation, fish-eye zooming, coalescing of distant nodes, texturing, effective use of colour for depth cueing, and the applications of dynamic queries. The fsviz system also improves upon earlier cone tree visualization systems through a more elaborate node layout algorithm. This algorithm enhances the usefulness of cone tree visualization for large hierarchies by all but eliminating clutter.
Research report: improving browsing in information by the automatic display layout
Authors: Peter Lüders, Rolf Ernst
Published at InfoVis, 1995

It is well known that graphical representations could be very helpful to browse in graph structured information. But this promising approach requires the capability of an automatic layout system because the tedious and time consuming task of a manual layout leads to a rejection of this approach by the user. In our approach, we split the task of retrieving information into two phases that are getting the orientation within the network and reading currently visited information. We present layout algorithms for both phases which have the benefit of being flexible and adaptable to individual user requests and ensure the topological consistency, i.e. the stability of the topology of the information layout during a sequence of display layouts. The results show that especially the possibility of an animation of the layout process can assist the user essentially in maintaining the orientation in the information network.
Research report: information animation applications in the capital markets
Authors: W. Wright
Published at InfoVis, 1995

3D computer graphics can be extremely expressive. It is possible to display an entire securities market, like the S&amp;P 500, on a single screen. With the correct approach to the visual design of the layout, these massive amounts of information can be quickly and easily comprehended by a human observer. By using motion and animated interaction, it is possible to use 3D as a reliable, accurate and precise decision-support tool. Information animation applications are particularly suited to the securities industry because that is where we find huge amounts of data, the value of which declines rapidly with time, and where critical decisions are being made on this data in very short periods of time. Information animation technology is an important new tool for the securities industry, where people need to be in the decision-making loop without suffering from information overload. Several examples are discussed including equity trading analytics, fixed income trading analytics and fixed-income risk viewing.