[CCICADA-announce] CCICADA Seminar - Wednesday, October 20, 2010

[Linda Casals]

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    The Command, Control, and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data
Analysis (CCICADA), a Homeland Security Center of Excellence Seminar
               
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Title: Visual and Interactive Data Modeling for Science, Engineering, and Training

Speaker: Jian Chen, University of Southern Mississippi

Date: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Location: CoRE Bldg, Room 433, Rutgers University, Busch Campus, Piscataway, NJ

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Abstract:

>From the recent video gaming success story of the Nintendo Wii to
scientific uses of large stereoscopic displays, new interactive
visualization technologies are changing the way we approach science,
art, and training. In this talk, I will present research designed to
advance data modeling in 3D environments by effective interaction and
visual communication.

One obstacle blocking the further development of visualization is the
lack of theory. One reason is that our visual system is complex,
tasked with inferring the observable properties of a rendering of
shape and lightings, and so on. The task is difficult due to the fact
that the encoding from real-world data properties to visual attributes
is many-to-one. For any given data, there are infinite encodings to
explain it. Our basic idea is that each encoding introduces a set of
interpretations in some way, and by studying them, visualizations will
be better equipped to arrive at a scientific fashion. I will present
my first attempt to evaluate encoding techniques for vector and tensor
field visualizations.

Another obstacle blocking scientific use of this technology is the
lack of understanding of 3D interactivity to construct useful
applications. I will present a problem-solving environment called
VisBubbles that has successfully addressed this obstacle. Our idea is
to make use of flexible display environment to enable fluid workflow
to facilitate scientists' discovery. Additionally, I will address how
these design principles can facilitate security-related training
applications. Combining the interactive data modeling with carefully
designed graphical representation will be critical for developing
future visualization tools for science, engineering, and training.

Bio:

Jian Chen is an assistant professor in the school of computing at the
University of Southern Mississippi. She is also the founding director
of the Interactive Visualization Computing Lab
(http://ivcl.cs.usm.edu). Her research investigates new computing
techniques for sciences in the areas of future computer displays and
the theory of visualization. Before joining USM, she was a postdoc at
the Brown University with David Laidlaw and Sharon Swartz from 2006 to
2009. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech in
2006. Her work on interaction and visualization received several best
paper or poster awards. She is a member of IEEE and ACM.