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IEEE Visualization '96


VISUALIZATION '96 TUTORIALS


Sunday, Monday, Tuesday

TUTORIAL 1
Sunday 9:30 - 6:30
Volume Visualization Algorithms and Applications
Instructors:
Arie E. Kaufman, State University of New York at Stony Brook
Rick Avila, GE Corporate Research and Development
William E. Lorensen, GE Corporate Research and Development
Lisa Sobierajski, GE Corporate Research and Development
Roni Yagel, The Ohio State University

Level: Intermediate

Course Description:
Volume visualization is a key technology for visualizing three-dimensional sampled, simulated, and synthetic datasets. This tutorial provides an overview of the nomenclature, the technology, and the techniques, with an emphasis on algorithms and applications. The course covers different approaches in surface extraction, volume viewing, volume shading, volume synthesis, and applications. Slides, videos, and live demos will demonstrate state-of-the-art techniques.

Who Should Attend:
The tutorial is designed for scientists, engineers, computer graphicists, and graduate students who are new to the field of volume visualization or interested in expanding their knowledge in that field.



TUTORIAL 2
Sunday 9:30 - 6:30
Introduction to Visualization
Instructors:
Georges Grinstein, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Matt Ward, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Level: Beginning

Course Description:
This tutorial will cover the necessary topics to understand the history, the computer graphics background, and the system issues involved in interactive data visualization and data exploration. We will provide a history of data visualization, look at fundamental perceptual issues, discuss data representations, compare visualization systems, and examine different application domains. We will also present state of the art exploration environments, including integrated database visualization systems, information visualizers, and highly interactive virtual exploration spaces. Many slides, videotapes, and demonstrations of various visualization techniques and systems will be presented.

Who Should Attend:
This course is aimed at those who would like to acquire or strengthen their fundamental background in basic visualization theory and systems and at those who would like to improve their day-to-day visualization results (in research, development, and implementation) by gaining a better understanding of the specific issues in visualization and data exploration.



TUTORIAL 3
Monday 8:30 - 5:30
Interactive Web Programming
Instructor:
Haim Levkowitz, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Level: Intermediate

Course Description:
Everybody can write HTML - almost. The really exciting future of the World- Wide Web is in two-way interactions utilizing both text and graphics. This course teaches those who are already experienced with developing static web documents how to develop a fully interactive Website, including text, graphics, and database interactions and visualization.

Who Should Attend:
This course is aimed at those who have written non-interactive Web pages (and are fairly comfortable with HTML) and want to learn how to develop fully interactive Web sites, including forms, scripts, graphics, animation and audio.



TUTORIAL 4
Monday 8:30 - 5:30
Visualization in the Physical Sciences
Instructors:
Theresa Marie Rhyne, Lockheed Martin/US EPA
Mike Botts, University of Alabama, Huntsville
Bill Hibbard, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Lloyd Treinish, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Level: Intermediate

Course Description:
This tutorial focuses on the application of visualization tools and interactive techniques to the examination and interpretation of scientific data sets. Highly illustrative atmospheric, oceanographic and geographic examples are demonstrated in real time. The process of developing effective visualization paradigms for supporting high speed networking, database management, heterogeneous computing platforms, user interface design, collaborative computing, science education and the implementation of animation techniques is highlighted. The convergence of visualization methods with the World Wide Web and the relationship between animation techniques and scientific information exploration are discussed.

Who Should Attend:
This tutorial is designed for scientific researchers, educators, and computer graphics specialists interested in exploring particular issues associated with handling the visual display of scientific information and large scientific datasets. Experience with scientific visualization systems and terminology is helpful as well as understanding of graphics programming.



TUTORIAL 5
Tuesday 8:30 - 5:30
From Perceptual Psychophysics to Graphic Design
Instructors:
Victoria Interrante, NASA Langley Research Center
Penny Rheingans, University of Mississippi
Tomas Filsinger, Multimedia

Level: Beginning

Course Description:
The disciplines of perceptual psychology and graphic design can offer many insights of value to researchers in the visualization community. Results from psychophysical experiments in visual perception contribute to a better understanding of how our visual system processes information, revealing its capabilities and limitations, and defining the nature of our response to various visual stimuli. From an understanding of how we see depth, for example, we can work to represent depth more effectively in images; with an understanding of how our visual system responds to color, we have an objective basis for determining how to use color most effectively in communicating information. The development of effective techniques for conveying information through images is an art as well as a science; artists, too, have a curriculum of study from which we can learn.

Who Should Attend:
The course is designed for visualization practitioners wishing to improve the effectiveness and perceptual accuracy of their presentations.



TUTORIAL 6
Tuesday 8:30 - 12:30
Advanced Methods in Visualization
Instructors:
Alfred Inselberg, Multidimensional Graphs Ltd., University of Southern California and Tel Aviv University
Avijit Chatterjee, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Level: Intermediate to Advanced

Course Description:
The desire to augment our 3-dimensional perception together with the motivation to visualize multivariate problems has attracted considerable attention and spawned the development of several visualization methodologies. At the start, visualization methodologies will be reviewed and the connection between multivariate problems and multidimensional geometry will be established. Understanding the underlying geometry of a multivariate problem provides important insights into what is possible and what is not. Recent tutorials concentrated on overviews of the field rather than in depth knowledge on specific methodologies. By contrast, the objective here is to acquire WORKING SKILLS and for this purpose we'll concentrate on studying Parallel Coordinates which provide a systematic and rigorous method for multi- dimensional visualization. The applications to multivariate problems starting with numerous examples in Data Mining (e.g. Process Control, AIDS, Financial, Retail, Neural Networks, etc.), Increasing VLSI Yields, Collision Avoidance Algorithms for Air Traffic Control (and the dual pursuit problems), Optimization, Computer Vision, and more general Nonlinear Models will be emphasized. Hands-on experience in DATA MINING will be provided.

Who Should Attend:
This course is for people working on multivariate problems. The material will be developed from the foundations so that the course will be self-contained. Those individuals working on multivariate problems include, but are not limited to Statisticians, Engineers, Commodity Traders and Financial Analysts, Physicists, Chemists, Control Theorists, Optimization and OR, Human Factors, Decision Makers, Medical Researchers. In general people working in fields where multivariate data is collected and analyzed who would like to VISUALIZE the multivariate relations arising in their areas will benefit from this course.



TUTORIAL 7
Tuesday 1:30 - 5:30
Visualization Toolkits: Applications and Techniques
Instructors:
Kenneth M. Martin, GE Corporate Research & Development Jean Favre, Swiss Center for Scientific Computing William E. Lorensen, GE Corporate Research & Development William J. Schroeder, GE Corporate Research & Development

Level: Intermediate

Course Description:
In this tutorial we will discuss fundamental issues regarding the design, implementation and application of 3D graphics and visualization systems. We will describe and contrast some current systems such as Open Inventor, AVS/Express, Data Explorer and the Visualization Toolkit. We will examine in more detail the implementation of AVS Express and the Visualization Toolkit. These will be used to illustrate important design issues such as graphics portability, interpreted versus compiled languages, multiple versus single inheritance, data flow models, and user interaction methods. In the remainder of this tutorial we will focus on applying visualization techniques and toolkits to solve problems from a selection of application domains.

Who Should Attend:
Attendees should have a basic understanding of computer graphics principles, software development techniques, and visualization algorithms such as color mapping and contouring. This course is intended for users, developers, researchers and practitioners of 3D graphics and data visualization.