About
As described more fully below, the Lab's activities center around these themes:
- Physical Object Interfaces and Interaction Paradigms
- Effective Technology Use for Science Engagement and Education
- Interactive Visualization and Data Analysis Tools
In several projects, the Lab has emphasized rapid deployment of an innovation into daily use in a public setting. For example, the Lab created tabletop exhibits that were positioned at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Indiana State Museum. An RFID-based nutrition education system is in daily use at the Ruth Lilly Health Education Center. Further, the Lab's Down By The Water set of tools for outdoor data collection and analysis are used each year by several Indiana middle schools.
Research
* Physical Object Interfaces and Interaction Paradigms
VIS Lab staff have invented novel interaction spaces and user interface elements. For example:
o The PercepTable is an installation where computer graphics are projected to a table top. Users interact with the application by moving small tools on the table surface, and computer vision algorithms interpret what the user is doing. There is no mouse and keyboard needed, so multiple users can interact with a PercepTable application simulaneously. The Lab created and installed custom PercepTable-based exhibits at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Indiana State Museum.
o Sensor-Based User Interfaces. Everyday objects can be augmented with discrete electronics components to function as part of an interface to a software application. In the VIS Lab Make-A-Meal interface for teaching nutrition, models of foods are augmented with RFID tags. Using the system, a teacher can simply pick up a food and put it on a tray to trigger graphical display of information about that food. This system is in daily use at the Ruth Lilly Health Education Center.
* Effective Technology Use for Science Engagement and Education
o Discovering the Science of the Environment: A Program for Kids and Families. In collaboration with the IUPUI Center for Earth and Environmental Science (CEES), the Lab is exploring the use of technology to enhance learning about science, math and the environment for kids, teachers and families, in both classroom and informal learning settings.
* Interactive Visualization and Data Analysis Tools
In collaboration with various science communities, the Lab researches, designs, and delivers tailored visualization tools. For example:
o VisPort. Visport offers Web access to remote visualization functionality, supports collaboration between application researchers and visualization specialists, and captures the informatics component of visualization. more...
o Visualizing Exploding Stars. The Terascale Supernova Initiative models physically accurate processes involved in supernova explosions. As members of the TSI team, VIS Lab staff produce custom visual representations that detect and highlight features in the very large simulation output. This research is funded in part by the Department of Energy under the SciDAC program.
o Visual Analysis of Ocean Simulation Output. The Inverse Ocean Modeling team researches the development of a computational framework to support data assimilation into existing and new ocean models. VIS Lab staff are researching techniques for Web-based visualization, as well as ways to visualize covariance relations among the many simulation output variables. This research is funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation.
