The SIGGRAPH Asia 2017 conference was held in Bangkok. It attracted many interested visitors from industry, education and other fields. The conference is mainly about rendering, graphics and animation. However, there is also a small Symposium on Visualization (SA17VIS) for researches from visualization and more graphics intensive backgrounds to meet and exchange ideas. During this symposium we had the change to present our paper “Visual Exploration of Mainframe Workloads”.
Research Results from Tübingen, Konstanz and Stuttgart accepted at CHI 2018
Each year in December, senior Human-Computer Interaction researchers meet to discuss the articles submitted to the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (or in short CHI). CHI is the most important venue for research on Human-Computer Interaction and covers a broad range of research from understanding people, via novel interaction techniques to visualization. This year, over 300 researchers came to Montreal and discussed the articles submitted to CHI 2018. With Harald Reiterer and me, two associate chairs from Konstanz and Stuttgart participated in the meeting. CHI only accepts about 25% of the submissions after a rigorous peer review process. With 16 accepted publications, the groups participating in SFB-TRR 161 from Konstanz, Tübingen, and Stuttgart have been very successful and are happy about how well their submissions have been received.
Demonstrating Calw Virtual Reality App at VSMM 2017
The International Society on Virtual Systems and MultiMedia (VSMM) held its 23rd International Conference in Dublin/Ireland and Belfast/Northern Ireland, on October 30th to November 5th, 2017. In total, about 150 participants enjoyed an exciting program, consisting of Workshops and Conference tracks in Dublin, and Special Workshops and Cultural Tours in Belfast. The VSMM Society launched its conferences 23 years ago in Japan, in the early stages of Virtual Reality applications. Since then, it brings together leading researchers in the application of digital media, mobile, and virtual and augmented reality technology together with users across a diverse community.
A House Full of Science Fiction for Visualization Research
Prof. Dr. Uta Hinrichs from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland visited the project group of Prof. Dr. Harald Reiterer at the University of Konstanz end of October 2017. During her stay, she held an interesting talk about ‘Visualization as a Process’ where she illustrated the benefits and drawbacks of different visualization tool paradigms on the visualization creation process and outlined how an emphasis on “process” may open up new ways of discussing the role of visualization across disciplines and contexts. After her talk she kindly was available for a short interview.
Impressions from MUM 2017 in Stuttgart
This year, the 16th International Conference for Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM 2017) was held at the University of Stuttgart. Researchers from all around the world met from November 26th to 29th to present and discuss their latest work. Its single track program featured presentations about several topics from the cutting edge of research in Human Computer Interaction, along an art exposition, a Doctoral Consortium, posters sessions, workshops and tutorials.
Research Internship at Oculus in Redmond
In summer, I was at Facebook/Oculus in Redmond (USA). My internship was in the perceptual science group at Oculus Research. My work was closely related to my thesis topic as well as to my work in the SFB-TRR 161 at the Institute for Visualization and Interactive Systems, University of Stuttgart (Germany). I was responsible for the development of a study design, the experimental apparatus, and conducting a user study in virtual reality to investigate the effect of virtual hands on tactile perception.
Interleaving – A Novel Concept for Visually Scalable Dynamic Graph Visualization
Many applications exist that deal with relations, between people in a social network, between functions in a software system, or between cities in a transportation network. Typically, such relations are not static, but they are changing more or less frequently over time. This means the social contacts of people may differ from time to time, the function calls may change if new components are implemented, or routes may be blocked due to traffic jams or bad weather conditions.
Getting an Overview of the Hot Topics in Human-Vehicle Interface
My name is Alexandra Sipatchin and I am currently a neuroscience student intern at the Max Plack Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen at the Cognition and Control for Human-Machine Systems group. I attended the AutomotiveUI 2017 because I have never been to one and since I am new to the field I decided to join and have a broader overview of the hot topics in the field right now. The conference offered me a new insight over the extended and vast universe of human-vehicle interface.
Great Chance to Join AutoUI 2017
My name is Sarah Faltaous. I am an Egyptian student in the cognitive systems master program at the University of Ulm, currently doing my master thesis at Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen. I had a great chance of joining AutoUI 2017 conference in Oldenburg as a student volunteer and also as a work-in-progress poster presenter. This granted me the opportunity of meeting a lot of people from all over the world who share with me the same automotive domain interest.
Prof. Georges Grinstein – Why is his research so important and what does he tell his grandchildren?
I had the chance to interview Prof. Grinstein after his talk ‘Visual Analytics: A Modern View of its Future and Research Opportunities’ at the University of Konstanz in June 2017, when he visited Prof. Daniel A. Keim and his project team within the SFB-TRR 161. In my interview he was answering questions like “Why is research in the field of computer science, data visualization and visual analytics so important?”, “What are the major risks of visualization and visual analytics in the future?”, “What do we have to teach our children to make them fit for the future world?”, or “What challenges does Georges Grinstein still have?”