DevLan/vispubs huggingface dataset:
The Benefits of Synchronous Collaborative Information Visualization: Evidence from an Experimental Evaluation
Authors: Sabrina Bresciani, Martin J. Eppler
Published at InfoVis, 2009

A great corpus of studies reports empirical evidence of how information visualization supports comprehension and analysis of data. The benefits of visualization for synchronous group knowledge work, however, have not been addressed extensively. Anecdotal evidence and use cases illustrate the benefits of synchronous collaborative information visualization, but very few empirical studies have rigorously examined the impact of visualization on group knowledge work. We have consequently designed and conducted an experiment in which we have analyzed the impact of visualization on knowledge sharing in situated work groups. Our experimental study consists of evaluating the performance of 131 subjects (all experienced managers) in groups of 5 (for a total of 26 groups), working together on a real-life knowledge sharing task. We compare (1) the control condition (no visualization provided), with two visualization supports: (2) optimal and (3) suboptimal visualization (based on a previous survey). The facilitator of each group was asked to populate the provided interactive visual template with insights from the group, and to organize the contributions according to the group consensus. We have evaluated the results through both objective and subjective measures. Our statistical analysis clearly shows that interactive visualization has a statistically significant, objective and positive impact on the outcomes of knowledge sharing, but that the subjects seem not to be aware of this. In particular, groups supported by visualization achieved higher productivity, higher quality of outcome and greater knowledge gains. No statistically significant results could be found between an optimal and a suboptimal visualization though (as classified by the pre-experiment survey). Subjects also did not seem to be aware of the benefits that the visualizations provided as no difference between the visualization and the control conditions was found for the self-reported measures of satisfaction and participation. An implication of our study for information visualization applications is to extend them by using real-time group annotation functionalities that aid in the group sense making process of the represented data.
Towards Utilizing GPUs in Information Visualization: A Model and Implementation of Image-Space Operations
Authors: Bryan McDonnel, Niklas Elmqvist
Published at InfoVis, 2009

Modern programmable GPUs represent a vast potential in terms of performance and visual flexibility for information visualization research, but surprisingly few applications even begin to utilize this potential. In this paper, we conjecture that this may be due to the mismatch between the high-level abstract data types commonly visualized in our field, and the low-level floating-point model supported by current GPU shader languages. To help remedy this situation, we present a refinement of the traditional information visualization pipeline that is amenable to implementation using GPU shaders. The refinement consists of a final image-space step in the pipeline where the multivariate data of the visualization is sampled in the resolution of the current view. To concretize the theoretical aspects of this work, we also present a visual programming environment for constructing visualization shaders using a simple drag-and-drop interface. Finally, we give some examples of the use of shaders for well-known visualization techniques.
Visual Analysis of Inter-Process Communication for Large-Scale Parallel Computing
Authors: Chris Muelder, François Gygi, Kwan-Liu Ma
Published at InfoVis, 2009

In serial computation, program profiling is often helpful for optimization of key sections of code. When moving to parallel computation, not only does the code execution need to be considered but also communication between the different processes which can induce delays that are detrimental to performance. As the number of processes increases, so does the impact of the communication delays on performance. For large-scale parallel applications, it is critical to understand how the communication impacts performance in order to make the code more efficient. There are several tools available for visualizing program execution and communications on parallel systems. These tools generally provide either views which statistically summarize the entire program execution or process-centric views. However, process-centric visualizations do not scale well as the number of processes gets very large. In particular, the most common representation of parallel processes is a Gantt chart with a row for each process. As the number of processes increases, these charts can become difficult to work with and can even exceed screen resolution. We propose a new visualization approach that affords more scalability and then demonstrate it on systems running with up to 16,384 processes.
Visualizing Social Photos on a Hasse Diagram for Eliciting Relations and Indexing New Photos
Authors: Michel Crampes, Jeremy de Oliveira-Kumar, Sylvie Ranwez, Jean Villerd
Published at InfoVis, 2009

Social photos, which are taken during family events or parties, represent individuals or groups of people. We show in this paper how a Hasse diagram is an efficient visualization strategy for eliciting different groups and navigating through them. However, we do not limit this strategy to these traditional uses. Instead we show how it can also be used for assisting in indexing new photos. Indexing consists of identifying the event and people in photos. It is an integral phase that takes place before searching and sharing. In our method we use existing indexed photos to index new photos. This is performed through a manual drag and drop procedure followed by a content fusion process that we call 'propagation'. At the core of this process is the necessity to organize and visualize the photos that will be used for indexing in a manner that is easily recognizable and accessible by the user. In this respect we make use of an object Galois sub-hierarchy and display it using a Hasse diagram. The need for an incremental display that maintains the user's mental map also leads us to propose a novel way of building the Hasse diagram. To validate the approach, we present some tests conducted with a sample of users that confirm the interest of this organization, visualization and indexation approach. Finally, we conclude by considering scalability, the possibility to extract social networks and automatically create personalised albums.
Visualizing the Intellectual Structure with Paper-Reference Matrices
Authors: Jian Zhang 0006, Chaomei Chen, Jiexun Li
Published at InfoVis, 2009

Visualizing the intellectual structure of scientific domains using co-cited units such as references or authors has become a routine for domain analysis. In previous studies, paper-reference matrices are usually transformed into reference-reference matrices to obtain co-citation relationships, which are then visualized in different representations, typically as node-link networks, to represent the intellectual structures of scientific domains. Such network visualizations sometimes contain tightly knit components, which make visual analysis of the intellectual structure a challenging task. In this study, we propose a new approach to reveal co-citation relationships. Instead of using a reference-reference matrix, we directly use the original paper-reference matrix as the information source, and transform the paper-reference matrix into an FP-tree and visualize it in a Java-based prototype system. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach through visual analyses of the intellectual structure of two domains: information visualization and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The results show that our visualization not only retains the major information of co-citation relationships, but also reveals more detailed sub-structures of tightly knit clusters than a conventional node-link network visualization.
A Directional Occlusion Shading Model for Interactive Direct Volume Rendering
Authors: Mathias Schott, Vincent Pegoraro, Charles D. Hansen, Kevin Boulanger, Kadi Bouatouch
Published at EuroVis, 2009

Volumetric rendering is widely used to examine 3D scalar fields from CT/MRI scanners and numerical simulation datasets. One key aspect of volumetric rendering is the ability to provide perceptual cues to aid in understanding structure contained in the data. While shading models that reproduce natural lighting conditions have been shown to better convey depth information and spatial relationships, they traditionally require considerable (pre)computation. In this paper, a shading model for interactive direct volume rendering is proposed that provides perceptual cues similar to those of ambient occlusion, for both solid and transparent surface‐like features. An image space occlusion factor is derived from the radiative transport equation based on a specialized phase function. The method does not rely on any precomputation and thus allows for interactive explorations of volumetric data sets via on‐the‐fly editing of the shading model parameters or (multi‐dimensional) transfer functions while modifications to the volume via clipping planes are incorporated into the resulting occlusion‐based shading.
A Visualization Based Approach for Digital Signature Authentication
Authors: Songhua Xu, Wenxia Yang, Francis C. M. Lau 0001
Published at EuroVis, 2009

We propose a visualization based approach for digital signature authentication. Using our method, the speed and pressure aspects of a digital signature process can be clearly and intuitively conveyed to the user for digital signature authentication. Our design takes into account both the expressiveness and aesthetics of the derived visual patterns. With the visual aid provided by our method, digital signatures can be authenticated with better accuracy than using existing methods—even novices can examine the authenticity of a digital signature in most situations using our method. To validate the effectiveness of our method, we conducted a comprehensive user study which confirms positively the advantages of our approach. Our method can be employed as a new security enhancement measure for a range of business and legal applications in reality which involve digital signature authorization and authentication.
Accelerating Volume Raycasting using Proxy Spheres
Authors: Baoquan Liu, Gordon Clapworthy, Feng Dong 0005
Published at EuroVis, 2009

In this paper, we propose an efficient solution that addresses the performance problems of current single‐pass GPU raycasting algorithms. Our paper provides more control over the rendering process by introducing tighter ray segments for raycasting, while at the same time avoiding the introduction of any new rendering artefacts. We achieve this by dynamically generating, on the GPU, a coarsely fitted proxy geometry, composed of spheres, for the active blocks. The spheres are then rasterised into two z‐buffers by a single rendering pass. The resulting two z‐buffers are used as the first‐hit and last‐hit points for the subsequent raycaster. With this approach, only the valid ray segments between the two z‐buffers need to be sampled during raycasting. This also provides more coherent parallelism on the GPU due to more consistent ray length and avoidance of the overheads and dynamic branching of performing checks on a per‐sample basis during the raycasting pass.Our technique is ideal for dynamic data exploration in which both the transfer function and view parameters need to be changed frequently at runtime. The rendering results of our algorithm are identical to the general cube‐based proxy geometry algorithm, but the performance can be up to 15.7 times faster. Furthermore, the approach can be adopted by any existing raycasting system in a straightforward way.
Bivariate Transfer Functions on Unstructured Grids
Authors: Yuyan Song, Wei Chen 0001, Ross Maciejewski, Kelly P. Gaither, David S. Ebert
Published at EuroVis, 2009

Multi‐dimensional transfer functions are commonly used in rectilinear volume renderings to effectively portray materials, material boundaries and even subtle variations along boundaries. However, most unstructured grid rendering algorithms only employ one‐dimensional transfer functions. This paper proposes a novel pre‐integrated Projected Tetrahedra (PT) rendering technique that applies bivariate transfer functions on unstructured grids. For each type of bivariate transfer function, an analytical form that pre‐integrates the contribution of a ray segment in one tetrahedron is derived, and can be precomputed as a lookup table to compute the color and opacity in a projected tetrahedron on‐the‐fly. Further, we show how to approximate the integral using the pre‐integration method for faster unstructured grid rendering. We demonstrate the advantages of our approach with a variety of examples and comparisons with one‐dimensional transfer functions.
Collaborative Brushing and Linking for Co-located Visual Analytics of Document Collections
Authors: Petra Isenberg, Danyel Fisher
Published at EuroVis, 2009

Many real‐world analysis tasks can benefit from the combined efforts of a group of people. Past research has shown that to design visualizations for collaborative visual analytics tasks, we need to support both individual as well as joint analysis activities. We present Cambiera, a tabletop visual analytics tool that supports individual and collaborative information foraging activities in large text document collections. We define collaborative brushing and linking as an awareness mechanism that enables analysts to follow their own hypotheses during collaborative sessions while still remaining aware of the group's activities. With Cambiera, users are able to collaboratively search through documents, maintaining awareness of each others' work and building on each others' findings.
Comparing Parameter Manipulation with Mouse, Pen, and Slider User Interfaces
Authors: Colin Swindells, Melanie Tory, Rebecca Dreezer
Published at EuroVis, 2009

Visual fixation on one's tool(s) takes much attention away from one's primary task. Following the belief that the best tools ‘disappear’ and become invisible to the user, we present a study comparing visual fixations (eye gaze within locations on a graphical display) and performance for mouse, pen, and physical slider user interfaces. Participants conducted a controlled, yet representative, color matching task that required user interaction representative of many data exploration tasks such as parameter exploration of medical or fuel cell data. We demonstrate that users may spend up to 95% fewer visual fixations on physical sliders versus standard mouse and pen tools without any loss in performance for a generalized visual performance task.
Context-aware Volume Modeling of Skeletal Muscles
Authors: Zhicheng Yan, Wei Chen 0001, Aidong Lu, David S. Ebert
Published at EuroVis, 2009

This paper presents an interactive volume modeling method that constructs skeletal muscles from an existing volumetric dataset. Our approach provides users with an intuitive modeling interface and produces compelling results that conform to the characteristic anatomy in the input volume. The algorithmic core of our method is an intuitive anatomy classification approach, suited to accommodate spatial constraints on the muscle volume. The presented work is useful in illustrative visualization, volumetric information fusion and volume illustration that involve muscle modeling, where the spatial context should be faithfully preserved.
Direct Visualization of Deformation in Volumes
Authors: Stef Busking, Charl P. Botha, Frits H. Post
Published at EuroVis, 2009

Deformation is a topic of interest in many disciplines. In particular in medical research, deformations of surfaces and even entire volumetric structures are of interest. Clear visualization of such deformations can lead to important insight into growth processes and progression of disease.We present new techniques for direct focus+context visualization of deformation fields representing transformations between pairs of volumetric datasets. Typically, such fields are computed by performing a non‐rigid registration between two data volumes. Our visualization is based on direct volume rendering and uses the GPU to compute and interactively visualize features of these deformation fields in real‐time. We integrate visualization of the deformation field with visualization of the scalar volume affected by the deformations. Furthermore, we present a novel use of texturing in volume rendered visualizations to show additional properties of the vector field on surfaces in the volume.
DocuBurst: Visualizing Document Content using Language Structure
Authors: Christopher Collins 0001, Sheelagh Carpendale, Gerald Penn
Published at EuroVis, 2009

Textual data is at the forefront of information management problems today. One response has been the development of visualizations of text data. These visualizations, commonly based on simple attributes such as relative word frequency, have become increasingly popular tools. We extend this direction, presenting the first visualization of document content which combines word frequency with the human‐created structure in lexical databases to create a visualization that also reflects semantic content. DocuBurst is a radial, space‐filling layout of hyponymy (the IS‐A relation), overlaid with occurrence counts of words in a document of interest to provide visual summaries at varying levels of granularity. Interactive document analysis is supported with geometric and semantic zoom, selectable focus on individual words, and linked access to source text.
Efficient and Adaptive Rendering of 2-D Continuous Scatterplots
Authors: Sven Bachthaler, Daniel Weiskopf
Published at EuroVis, 2009

We extend the rendering technique for continuous scatterplots to allow for a broad class of interpolation methods within the spatial grid instead of only linear interpolation. To do this, we propose an approach that projects the image of a cell from the spatial domain to the scatterplot domain. We approximate this image using either the convex hull or an axis‐aligned rectangle that forms a tight fit of the projected points. In both cases, the approach relies on subdivision in the spatial domain to control the approximation error introduced in the scatterplot domain. Acceleration of this algorithm in homogeneous regions of the spatial domain is achieved using an octree hierarchy. The algorithm is scalable and adaptive since it allows us to balance computation time and scatterplot quality. We evaluate and discuss the results with respect to accuracy and computational speed. Our methods are applied to examples of 2‐D transfer function design.
Enclosing Surfaces for Point Clusters Using 3D Discrete Voronoi Diagrams
Authors: Paul Rosenthal, Lars Linsen
Published at EuroVis, 2009

Point clusters occur in both spatial and non‐spatial data. In the former context they may represent segmented particle data, in the latter context they may represent clusters in scatterplots. In order to visualize such point clusters, enclosing surfaces lead to much better comprehension than pure point renderings.We propose a flexible system for the generation of enclosing surfaces for 3D point clusters. We developed a GPU‐based 3D discrete Voronoi diagram computation that supports all surface extractions. Our system provides three different types of enclosing surfaces. By generating a discrete distance field to the point cluster and extracting an isosurface from the field, an enclosing surface with any distance to the point cluster can be generated. As a second type of enclosing surfaces, a hull of the point cluster is extracted. The generation of the hull uses a projection of the discrete Voronoi diagram of the point cluster to an isosurface to generate a polygonal surface. Generated hulls of non‐convex clusters are also non‐convex. The third type of enclosing surfaces can be created by computing a distance field to the hull and extracting an isosurface from the distance field. This method exhibits reduced bumpiness and can extract surfaces arbitrarily close to the point cluster without losing connectedness.We apply our methods to the visualization of multidimensional spatial and non‐spatial data. Multidimensional clusters are extracted and projected into a 3D visual space, where the point clusters are visualized. The respective clusters can also be visualized in object space when dealing with multidimensional particle data.
Extended Excentric Labeling
Authors: Enrico Bertini, Maurizio Rigamonti, Denis Lalanne
Published at EuroVis, 2009

The paper presents an extension to the Excentric Labeling, a labeling technique to dynamically show labels around a movable lens. Each labels refers to one object within the lens and is connected to it through a line. The original implementation has several known limitations and potential improvements that we address in this work, like: high density areas, uneven density distributions, and summary statistics. We describe the implemented extensions and present a think‐aloud user study. The study shows that users can naturally understand and easily operate the majority of the implemented function but label scrolling, which requires additional research. From the study we also gained unanticipated requirements and interesting directions for further research.
Force-Directed Edge Bundling for Graph Visualization
Authors: Danny Holten, Jarke J. van Wijk
Published at EuroVis, 2009

Graphs depicted as node‐link diagrams are widely used to show relationships between entities. However, node‐link diagrams comprised of a large number of nodes and edges often suffer from visual clutter. The use of edge bundling remedies this and reveals high‐level edge patterns. Previous methods require the graph to contain a hierarchy for this, or they construct a control mesh to guide the edge bundling process, which often results in bundles that show considerable variation in curvature along the overall bundle direction. We present a new edge bundling method that uses a self‐organizing approach to bundling in which edges are modeled as flexible springs that can attract each other. In contrast to previous methods, no hierarchy is used and no control mesh. The resulting bundled graphs show significant clutter reduction and clearly visible high‐level edge patterns. Curvature variation is furthermore minimized, resulting in smooth bundles that are easy to follow. Finally, we present a rendering technique that can be used to emphasize the bundling.
Fully Automatic Visualisation of Overlapping Sets
Authors: Paolo Simonetto, David Auber, Daniel Archambault
Published at EuroVis, 2009

Visualisation of taxonomies and sets has recently become an active area of research. Many application fields now require more than a strict classification of elements into a hierarchy tree. Euler diagrams, one of the most natural ways of depicting intersecting sets, may provide a solution to these problems.In this paper, we present an approach for the automatic generation of Euler‐like diagrams. This algorithm differs from previous approaches in that it has no undrawable instances of input, allowing it to be used in systems where the output is always required. We also improve the readability of Euler diagrams through the use of Bézier curves and transparent coloured textures. Our approach has been implemented using the Tulip platform. Both the source and executable program used to generate the results are freely available.