User-Defined Virtual Environments for Manipulation and Analysis of Multivariate Data

The first picture shows a workbench with a glyph-under-construction that is scaled in the x-direction by draging the scale-handle. On the lefthand side one can see the 3d-menu for selecting the different classes.

In this picture a binding-bar is visible, that shows the variable range (in this case temperature) mapped onto the glyph range (in this case the color of the glyph from blue to red).

After binding the temperature to the color of the glyphs, the various time-steps can be viewed with the aid of a VCR type interface. This picture shows a NaCl cluster smashing into a Ne surface.

Data supplied by David Luedtke and Uzi Landman.

The animation shows the process of binding. First the variable "temperature" is selected to open the binding bar, then the color-range is set from blue to red and the upper value of the variable-range is adjusted. Finaly different time-steps with this binding are visualized.


Project Description

We are designing a user-friendly, Human-Computer interface for glyph-based scientific visualization in a virtual environment. This interface will allow users to customize their own visual representations of the data, their own virtual spaces, and their own interactive tools. The result will be a VE adaptable to the user's needs and, in particular, customizable to take advantage of the capabilitites and minimize the limitations of the hardware. As an example of the latter, the interface will have the means for the user to reduce the complexity of certain spatial regions of the data so that the rendering updates can be done quickly enough and the interactivity lag minimized. The use of 3D glyphs will make it feasible to represent several variables simultaneously and to see correlations among them distinctly. Designed into the interface is a novel way to create glyphs in the VE and bind them to data variables by direct manipulation.

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