3D Modeling By the Masses: A Mobile App for Modeling Buildings / Visualization Mosaics for Multivariate Visual Exploration

Refreshments will be served. Abstract: Talk 1: 3D Modeling By the Masses: A Mobile App for Modeling Buildings Todd Eaglin (speaker),  Kalpathi Subramanian, Jamie Payton Knowledge of the 3D geometry of large urban buildings and surrounding structures is important in indoor navigation applications, emergencies, and evacuation response. Visual representations of the 3D geometry can be useful to users navigating unfamiliar buildings. The traditional methods of constructing 3D models from CAD drawings or GIS systems are prone to error, difficult to modify in a timely manner, can easily become out-of-date, and are not scalable. We exploit the power of current mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) and their 3D graphics rendering capabilities to present a mobile application that uses crowdsourcing to build 3D models of large buildings and urban structures. Our system is based on a client-server architecture, where users of a mobile application create, submit, and vote on 3D models of building components; the server collects and uses votes pertaining to accuracy and completion of a model to determine if an object may be approved. We describe preliminary results from using the system on a floor of an academic building and propose its deployment and demonstration during Percom 2012 for mapping the conference venue by meeting participants. Talk 2: Visualization Mosaics for Multivariate Visual Exploration Stephen MacNeil (speaker), Niklas Elmqvist We present a new model for creating composite visualizations of multidimensional datasets using simple visual representations such as point charts, scatterplots, and parallel coordinates as components. Each visual represen- tation is contained in a tile, and the tiles are arranged in a mosaic of views using a space-filling slice-and-dice layout. Tiles can be created, resized, split, or merged using a versatile set of interaction techniques, and the visual representation of individual tiles can also be dynamically changed to another representation. Because each tile is self-contained and independent, it can be implemented in any programming language, on any platform, and using any visual representation. We also propose a formalism for expressing visualization mosaics. A web-based implementation called MosaicJS supporting multidimensional visual exploration showcases the versatility of the concept and illustrates how it can be used to integrate visualization components provided by different toolkits.