Intersections Report: vizNET 2007

vizNet 2007 workshop

Intersections in Visualization Practices and Techniques

17-19 April 2007 Leicestershire, UK

The inaugural vizNET – 3DVisA workshop, vizNET 2007, took place at the Systems Engineering Innovation Centre at Loughborough University from the 17th – 19th April 2007. vizNET 2007 proved to be a highly successful cross-domain event, attended by 40 participants from across the Arts and Humanities and the Sciences and Engineering. ( view delegate list ...)

Multiple visualisation technologies and techniques

One of the most successful aspects of the event was the broad range of visualisation practices and techniques we were able to address, thus offering a solid overview across both new and familiar topics to researchers expert in one area of visualisation who were interested in expanding their knowledge base into other areas, and to newcomers to visualisation who were seeking a comprehensive introduction and overview. ( view detailed programme ...)

Participants' interest across multiple visualisation practices and techniques was demonstrated by the very high level of participation and informal discussion throughout the event. Questions and comments were wide-ranging and frequently included additional examples from the participants' own fields. Many expressed an interest in collaboration.

Three day staged programme easing into visualisation

This year’s inaugural event was structured over three days, beginning with introductions and orientations from both the science and engineering and arts and humanities perspectives (including demos), followed by a day of detailed sessions, and concluding with a day of expert seminars. On the second day, a number of detailed sessions were presented in tandem with one presenter from science and engineering followed by another from arts and humanities. Presenters' slides from this event are available on the vizNET repository. (Registration required.)

Day 1

*We started with a general overview of visualisation given by Prof. Roy Kalawsky, Director of vizNET, who presented visualisation as it is today as an introduction to the aims and objectives of vizNET 2007, and more generally as an introduction to the aims and objectives of vizNET, the UK Visualization Support Network. (back to speakers)

*Prof. Ken Brodlie of the University of Leeds then presented part I of A Rough Guide to Data Visualization. This was a highly interactive session involving considerable audience participation where we were asked to look again at some basic techniques of simple graphs and charts. Classic examples included a discussion of first graph in the 10th century and a number of diagrams from Edward Tufte's work. Brodlie then shifted to some basic techniques from scientific visualisation: isosurfaces and volume rendering. Coincidently isosurfaces were demonstrated in the demos later in the afternoon and participants were able to see the concept in use first hand. Brodlie's slides were packed with diagrams and visualisations making it possible to follow the discussion despite scientific terms that may have been unfamiliar to some.
(back to speakers)

*Dr. Julie Tolmie of King's College London then continued the historical theme with visualisation across domains, starting with early polyphony, in particular with western musical notation as visualisation. Tolmie played examples of early polyphony from the 12th to the 14th centuries, asking participants to listen to the increasingly complex rhythmic structure. She discussed the philosophical and cultural upheaval set in train by this spatial musical notation system (11th century) leading to the evolution of polyphony and the development of measured music (through the 12th and 13th centuries), culminating in a papal bull banning it (mid 14th century), a dispute over 'music as language' vs. 'music as space'. In contrast, Tolmie then showed a recorded live demo of the as yet unreleased video game 'Spore', demonstrating its procedural content creation in the creature phase of the game. This was followed with examples of the motion capture and 3D modelling used to make the French animated bande dessiné, Renaissance (2006), thus giving both non-traditional (Spore) and traditional (Renaissance) applications of visualisation in popular culture.
(back to speakers)

Participants were invited to outline their own backgrounds and reasons for coming. Many took this opportunity.

The workshop then relocated to the adjacent room where demos of stereoscopic visualisation and grid visualisation had been set up using a portable projection system. *Dr. Martin Turner and Mary McDerby from Manchester Visualisation Centre demonstrated stereoscopic visualisation and *John O'Brian and Ian Holmes of SEIC, Loughborough University demonstrated grid visualisation on different devices, in particular also showing medical visualisations tailored for PDAs.(back to speakers)

In summary, Day 1 demonstrated a diverse range of visualisation examples and science & engineering and arts & humanities viewpoints and set the tone for the detailed sessions to follow. Discussion continued well into the night with participants adjourning to Burleigh Court for the vizNET - 3DVisA sponsored workshop dinner.

Day 2

On the second day we delivered an extensive programme of sessions spanning different areas of visualisation in some depth. In a number of cases the sessions were paired, with science and engineering and the arts and humanities presenting on similar or the same topics.

*The day began with Prof. Ken Brodlie’s second session on visualising tables of information (or multivariate data sets), visualising structures of information, interacting with such visualisations, and visualising time. A considerable amount of visual and diagrammatic material was presented making this abstract topic readily accessible to the arts and humanities as an overview. In fact, Brodlie's two presentations contained of the order of 100 diagrams or visualisations. Discussions of screen real estate, multiple views, perspective walls, visual metaphors, hyperbolic arcs in star trees, time series, spiral graphs and time wheels were included, all of which have application in new media mapping of data sources and streams.(back to speakers)

*Dr Julie Tolmie’s session on mathematical visualisation in the sonic, visual and performing Arts began with an historical example from early abstract film, Oskar Fischinger's Studie nr. 7 (1931) and discussed the inherent problems of sound illustrating image and image illustrating sound. She then presented recent examples created in the runtime environment vvvv and the graphical data structures environment of Pure data, in particular from Sanch and the French duo, chdh, respectively. Both are visual programming data flow environments, and the real time simultaneous generation of sound and image using visual objects to control virtual instruments was demonstrated using patches from physical modelling for pure data. Tolmie also discussed the possible implications and applications of a new form comprising both sound and image, with reference to the historical timeframe example of polyphony presented on the first day. (back to speakers)

*Dr. SteveWilkes, of the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity and the HP VISTA Lab at the University of Birmingham discussed 3D data acquisition and visualisation, in particular laser scanning or LIDAR, and Ground Penetrating Radar. He showed a number of fly-throughs and rotational views of landscape reconstructions, including underwater views of North Sea landscapes. (back to speakers)

*Drew Baker of King's Visualisation Lab presented 3D modelling in the context of 3D visualisation and interpretation of archaeology and history. Baker set an interactive tone for the session, requesting participants to visualise a scene given text-based instructions. Considerable discussion followed from the responses generated. Baker then demonstrated the same process (using a text-based record as a data source) for visualisations of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, showing eight visualisations spanning the period from 1572 to 1908, with some of these evidently based on one or more previous versions. He then discussed issues of transparency, paradata and process as artefact. (back to speakers)

*Prof. Roy Kalawsky of Loughborough University presented realtime 3D modelling beginning with the difference between real-time applications and animation, explaining first in overview the 3D modelling process and then moving on to the run time - scene graph system. Level of detail and when to stop modelling were discussed with examples shown from flight simulation, in particular using the technique of billboarding, and from a project involving an environmental impact assessment of proposed local construction. Different ways of acquiring or generating data were addressed followed by a detailed look at the process of modelling itself, polygons, shared vertices, profiles, materials, shading and textures, along with whether to optimise from a polygonal point of view for realtime performance and whether to embed photorealistic textures to overcome the limitations in removing some of the polygons.

Kalawsky then addressed display technologies, first defining display technologies to include whole body, visual, haptic, and auditory, and then giving examples including panoramic, power walls, immersive desks, caves, vision domes, plate stereo displays, head mounted displays, helio 3D displays, auditory, tactile, haptic, force feedback - force reflective systems, and whole body - motion base displays. Issues of selecting a modality or modalities and avoiding sensory conflict were also discussed. (back to speakers)

*Dr. Martin Turner of the University of Manchester presented visualisation systems and tools, including both open source and proprietary systems. Turner considered a number of questions when choosing a visualisation system: whether you know what you want or whether choice of system is the research problem; who can help you to choose a system; what can be used to programme the system, and at what level. Advantages and disadvantages of different systems were outlined. Trade-offs emerged between the most flexible systems, which involve writing large amounts of code, and turnkey packages, or point and click systems which are quick to use for development purposes, but involve a black box which can be difficult or impossible to extend, difficult to integrate existing code into, and are often targeted to particular application domains. Between these two extremes lay the applications and application builders or modular visualisation environments. Applications required a reasonable amount of programming, while modular visualisation environments often used visual programming paradigms and dataflow models and lent themselves to extension through the writing of new modules. (back to speakers)

*Dr. Sara de Freitas previously of Birkbeck and the London Knowledge Lab, and now with the Serious Games Institute, University of Coventry, presented the UK Serious Game Research Program, a four year R&D program funded by the UK Department of Trade and Industry. The emphasis in this program is on the development of representation of the game in line with learning objectives using a participatory design/development framework of context, learner specifics, pedagogy and representation. The representation dimension of game based learning involved the diegesis of the game, or visualisation, and the transfer between ‘world of the game’ and real life experience important to ensure learning objectives are met. The visualisation itself involved levels of immersion related to engagement, levels of fidelity or verisimilitude dependent upon the learning objectives and levels of interactivity close to experiences in real-life. A case study of infection control in acute health care and a demo interactive trauma trainer were shown. (back to speakers)

*Michael Takeo Magruder of King's Visualisation Lab discussed 3D Visualisation within Internet Art, starting with the art historical context by giving traditional analogue media examples from Duchamp, Brâncuʂi and Escher. He then looked in detail at the artistic desire to escape the limitations of physical space through digital media. In VRML, he showed his recent works, World[s], Monolith[s], both from 2006. In Shockwave 3D, he looked at generative art, giving examples from Live updater, and Toxi and Meekmocha. In the Processing Java-based environment, he examined data mining / visualisation art using an example from Toxi. He concluded by looking at multi-user experience in Second Life and the transition from isolated, single-user artworks into forms that embrace the notion of virtual public space.
(back to speakers)

*Prof. Nick Avis of Cardiff University presented The Grid. He began by addressing the question of 'what is the grid', defining it to include resources, middleware (intermediate software structure), interfaces, and users. He then discussed a number of common analogies: electrical power, automatic nervous system, ants, insect colonies and a self healing human body. Questions of security, efficiency, cost, and portability were also addressed. Avis then presented features of grid based visualization: instant visual access to large data sets, more power to the desktop, and networked collaboration of distributed individuals and groups, especially important for collaborative visualization at an international level. He discussed models for a National Visualization Service which would play a similar role to the National Grid Service, but specifically tailored to the needs of visualization. To this end, he saw gatherings such as this vizNET event as an important opportunity to gather community input, in particular user requirements for the arts and humanities.He spoke about some of the barriers to bringing potential users up to speed and the role that vizNET could play in training and support. (back to speakers)

*Dr. Gregory Sporton of the Visualisation Research Unit at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, having recently hosted a series of workshops, Building the Wireframe: e-Science for the Visual Arts, presented challenges for creative practice in the visual arts raised by e-Science. The research focus of the VRU, adapting existing technologies for creative practice, data manipulation and transformation, and exploring the unique features and limitations of technologies, is strongly e-Science oriented. As an example, Sporton presented the CODA (Collaborative Online Digital Arts) environment discussing its integration of data resources, computing power, interaction between remote users and (more or less) real-time response. The challenges and opportunities flagged included: a shift in the locus of creativity, distribution of resources, variation of output, potential for multiple authors/artists, and the technology interpolating previously separated data. (back to speakers)

*Dr. Hugh Denard of King's Visualisation Lab presented documentation of 3D visualisation of archaeological or historical artefact, structure or site, asking how does one show how much is known fact and what is mere speculation, as well as all of the shades of possibility and probability in between. Denard presented a photographic example of frescos in Room of the Theatrical Paintings, House of Cryptoporticus, Pompeii I.6.2-4 and then 1934 Walter Klinkert composite drawing of facing walls, Room of the Theatrical Paintings, House of Cryptoporticus, Pompeii I.6.2-4. He discussed a preliminary perspectival and structural analysis of the composite drawing and issues encountered in its 3D visualisation / reconstruction. Denard then introduced The London Charter for the Use of 3-dimensional Visualisation in the Research and Communication of Cultural Heritage. (back to speakers)

We concluded the day (and for some participants the event) with a discussion looking for intersections in visualisation practices and techniques.

Day 3

The third day mostly addressed more specialised topics.
*Dr. Lakshmi Sastry and Srikanth Nagella of the Science and Technology Facilities Council at Rutherford Appleton Laboratories presented Data Analysis on the Grid. The facility is one of the nodes of the National Grid Service. It handles a petabyte of data a day, for example from ground, satellite and space based observation data, and from simulation. Among other resources, the facility has high performance visualization servers for exploiting the locality for visualization, crucial to support near real time data exploration. They aim to support the user to use their own desktop problem environment for analysis and visualization on the grid. An example from Integrative Biology, a project led by Sastry, studies the distribution of the electrical pulse through the heart from the cellular to the whole organ level. Accurate geometry and fibre orientation is required for realistic simulation. Image processing and visualization on a commodity (computer) cluster using 1440 slices of 1024 by 1024 pixel images were shown.

Sastry and Nagella then presented a session on Introductory Level Visualization Toolkits with IRIS Explorer and Matlab and IDL, showcased as examples. The advantages of using toolkits included a much higher level of abstraction for the details of creating a visualization, data flow visualization systems that allow one to build a visualization pipeline using a drag and drop interface, cross-platform availability, professional support, documentation and examples, and a community of users providing access to contributed modules. Some of the possible disadvantages included propietary data formats, no interoperability in general, and drilling through for finer control may or may not be possible.(back to speakers)

*Dr. Hugh Denard and Prof. Roy Kalawsky presented a combined session on interdisciplinary collaboration, each giving examples from previous interdisciplinary collaborative projects. (back to speakers)

*Carl Smith of London Metropolitan University focused on the pedagogically effective design of reusuable and mobile visualisation based learning objects. The first example involved an archeological learning environment in which the final model was used as an interface into the hierarchies of evidence providing intellectual transparency and access to evolutions of form. Stages in translation from ruin to reconstruction were shown. The 3D model was then presented as a database of profiles and paths, with methods of construction displayed from within the model itself. The second example involved the design and methodology for the generation of dynamic visualizations on mobile phones for a series of sports science learning objects. Issues of screen size, text, legibility and audio, navigation and user control, and possible modes of interactivity were discussed. One mobile learning generated context was defined as attaching information to space; early development work on mediascapes and user generated contexts was flagged. (back to speakers)

*Dr. Nijad Al-Najdawi of Loughborough University presented usability and accessibility issues in web design. Content, accessibility, usability and sustainability were raised as the key issues in web design, with content defined by the audience and the message, and the audience including persons with various abilities and capabilities. Accessibility was discussed in terms of browsing: how do visually impaired persons see a web page and how do they use it; and in terms of guidelines, with references to accepted principles for accessible web design, accessibility validators, and multiple browser testing. Usability goals were given as: ease of learning, efficiency of use, memorability, error tolerance and subjective satisfaction. The need of the user to get in and out quickly and the importance of the organisation of the web site, its navigation, and the search capabilities provided were raised. (back to speakers)

*Mark Riding of the University of Manchester presented e-Viz, a turnkey system for visualisation on the Grid.
This system targets users who do not develop their and visualizations and/or who want to visualize using remote machines. In the first case, users may not have the time to develop their own visualizations, or their skills lie in other areas than visualization development. In the second case, users visualize with remote machines when local hardware is not powerful enough, or the data is stored remotely and cannot be quickly transferred to the local machine. Problems can occur when the turnkey visualization software is not available on the remote machines where the data resides, and if the user is not familiar with the operating system installed on the remote machine. The system architecture creates a layer of abstraction between visualization applications and their user interfaces so the system supports remote visualization using one user interface to a range of visualization services. Multiple users can share the same visualization. Examples of molecular visualization and volume visualization were showcased. (back to speakers)

We finished with informal discussion on possibilities for next year and possibilities for facilitating collaboration.

Conclusion:
A significant number of Arts and Humanities researchers see visualisation as important to their research practice and are keen to gain more than a cursory understanding of the technologies and techniques available to them. A significant number are also keen to see how such collaboration could be achieved. vizNET 2008 is now approaching and we invite vizNET 2007 participants to network at vizNET 2008. A list of participants and their affliations appears below.

We welcome new participants and hope that this page has provided you with a useful overview of the 2007 event. We hope to meet you at vizNET 2008. The slides for these presentations are available on the vizNET repository. (Registration required, but free.). The vizNET Annual Event is now approaching again and we invite you to participate.

Delegates and their affilitations
(* indicates presenter)

| Dr. Abdul Almiladi, De Montfort University

| Dr. Nijad Al-Najdawi *, SEIC, Loughborough University

| Prof. Nick Avis *, Cardiff University

| Mr. Drew Baker *, King’s Visualisation Lab, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London

| Prof. Richard Beacham, King’s Visualisation Lab, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London

| Dr. Anna Bentkowska, King’s Visualisation Lab, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London

| Prof. Ken Brodlie *, School of Computing, University of Leeds

| Mr. Angus Colvin, University of Dundee

| Dr. Tom Corby, University of Westminster

| Dr. Hugh Denard *, King’s Visualisation Lab, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London

| Dr. Stuart Dunn, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London

| Dr. Sara De Freitas *, School of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of London

| Mr. David Gray, De Montfort University

| Dr. Ian Grimstead, Cardiff University

| Mr. Ian Holmes *, SEIC, Loughborough University

| Prof. Slavik Jablan, The Mathematical Institute, Knez Mihailova

| Mr. Martin Jessop, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London

| Prof. Roy Kalawsky *, SEIC, Loughborough University

| Mr. Michael Takeo Magruder *, King’s Visualisation Lab, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London

| Mrs. Mary McDerby , Manchester Visualization Centre, University of Manchester

| Mr. Srikanth Nagella *, Science and Technology Facilities Council, e-Science Centre

| Mr. Ken Newman, University of Portsmouth, Dept of Creative Technologies

| Mr. John O’Brien *, SEIC, Loughborough University

| Ms. Roma Patel, Narrative and Interactive Arts, School of Art and Design, Nottingham Trent University

| Dr. Stefano Perna, Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy

| Dr. Richard Polfreman, University of Southampton

| Dr. Torsten Reimer, AHRC ICT Methods Network

| Mr. Mark Riding *, Manchester Visualization Centre, University of Manchester

| Mr. Alec Robinson, Dept of Imaging & Communication Design, De Montfort University

| Dr. Stuart Robson, Dept of Geomatic Engineering, University College London

| Dr. Lakshmi Sastry *, Science and Technology Facilities Council, e-Science Centre

| Mr. Carl Smith *, Learning Technology Research Institute, London Metropolitan University

| Dr. Gregory Sporton *, Visualisation Research Unit, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design

| Mr. Abdulghani Suwan, De Montfort University

| Dr. Julie Tolmie *, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London

| Mrs. Alison Turner, JISC

| Dr. Martin Turner *, Manchester Visualization Centre, University of Manchester

| Mr. Jose Miguel Vieira, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London

| Dr. Jeremy Walton, The Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd, Oxford

| Dr. Stephen Wilkes *, Birmingham Archaeology, University of Birmingham

Programme

17 April: Half day introduction to what is visualization, how it is applied and examples of current practice in a range of processes. This will be followed by demonstrations of stereoscopic and grid-based visualization and a workshop dinner.

Welcome and Introduction to Visualization	The first presentation will provide a whistle stop tour of the importance and role of visualization today. It will attempt to demystify some of the science behind visualization and help set the scene for the following more indepth presentations.	Prof. Roy Kalawsky (Loughborough University)
A Rough Guide to Data Visualization – Part 1	The talk will aim to give a broad overview of the field of data visualization, and will be in two parts. The first part will begin by looking at simple graphs and charts, familiar to all, but with guidance on fundamentals to be understood and pitfalls to be avoided. We then move on to look at visualization of physical data, often called ‘scientific visualization’, where we describe the key techniques of isosurfacing and volume rendering. "	Prof. Ken Brodlie (University of Leeds)
Cross-domain: Introduce science/Engineering and Arts/Humanities to how visualization is currently used in their domains	This talk will traverse domains by first examining the historical impact of visualisation on western music, in particular spatial notation and the evolution of polyphony. We then examine contemporary examples with a view articulating new and traditional research questions for the Arts and Humanities in the visualization problem solving environments of the Sciences and Engineering. The next part of the session will introduce the surgery session which will be held on the last day of the event (19th April). This surgery session will be an open workshop to discuss any visualization issues people would like to pose to a panel of experts.	Dr. Julie Tolmie (Kings College London) Dr. Nijad Al-Najdawi (Loughborough University)
Demos (Stereoscopic, and Grid visualization)	Demos	Dr. Martin Turner (University of Manchester) Mr. John O'Brien (Loughborough University), Mr. Ian Holmes (Loughborough University)

18 April: Full day workshop with nine sessions providing introductions to, and overviews of Information Visualization v. Mathematical Visualization, Data Acquisition, 3D Modelling, Web-based "portal delivery" visualization, Display Technologies, Open Source Software v. Proprietary Software, Games Platforms and MMORPGS, Grid-based visualization and Documentation.

A Rough Guide to Data Visualization – Part 2	In the second part of the ‘Rough Guide’ we discuss visualization of tables of data, that is, tables of observations, each observation comprised of values of a number of variables (as in census data). Here we are looking for relationships amongst the variables, and we discuss scatter plots, parallel coordinates and glyph techniques. Finally we look at visualization of structured data, such as information hierarchies – examples of these being computer filestores and web pages.	Prof. Ken Brodlie (University of Leeds)
Mathematical Visualisation in the Sonic, Visual and Performing Arts	This talk will examine mathematical visualisation as it is used in the sonic, visual and performing arts. Mathematical visualisation is the generation and/or transformation of data using mathematical structures and mappings. Following on from yesterday’s discussion of early polyphony, we begin by providing an historical context for early abstraction in film. We then examine visual programming environments for synchronous composition of sound and image in live performance, in particular the use of Pure Data for physical modelling by French artists, chdh. We then look at a text based environment for visual and responsive structures, Processing, where the emphasis is on interaction rather than synchronous sound and image. We discuss briefly the communities of practice, and give pointers to visual mathematical resources detailing mappings and structures. Time permitting, we focus on the increasing importance of data capture and its (artistic) representation, giving further examples.	Dr. Julie Tolmie (Kings College London)
Data Acquisition	Application of Laser scanning or LiDAR, ground Penetrating Radar and seismic data acquisition technologies and techniques has enabled the 3D visualisation of many facets of the landscape or built environment based on real world measurements. Case studies from the Trent Tame 'Where Rivers Meet' project, North Sea Paleolandscape survey, Restoring the Ancient Stabiae, and San Giovanni in Laterano survey, will look to illustrate the potential of such 3D acquisition and visualisation developments and the way in which they have enhanced the understanding of the subject matter.	Dr. Stephen Wilkes (University of Birmingham)
3D Modelling	Fundamental to the 3D visualisation process are the component parts that make up the image, animation or world that is presented to the viewer, of those components the core is the model itself. As we move away from the traditional use of 3D as simple illustrations to becoming research and visual hypothesis themselves the process of creating models must be approached in a different way. This talk will highlight the disparity between the use of 3D models as a purely illustrative technique and their emerging use in cognitive modelling processes. It will further consider the implications of recording the visualisation process and how this paradata can be used to further debate and understating. The second part of this session will look at 3D modelling and the creation of real-time scenes. Examples will be given of photorealistic 3D modelling of outdoor scenes.	Mr. Drew Baker (King's College London) Prof. Roy Kalawsky (Loughborough University)
Display Technologies	This session will introduce the different display technologies that are frequently encountered by the visualization user. In particular the benefits and disadvantages of each candidate display technology will be discussed.	Prof. Roy Kalawsky (Loughborough University)
Review of Classes of Visualization System: with respect to the options from both open-source and proprietary developers	Disparate visualization systems have grown from specific needs and often from either the research or commercial camps; and therefore have to satisfy different purposes and requirements. This short presentation will give a brief show-and-tell of various systems, highlighting some of the differences and advantages of each. There will also be an attempt to class the visualization tools into specific types understandable by software designers. Throughout this presentation there will also be some test comparison studies that will come from alternative fields to the usual scientific and information visualization genres; medical to scientific to mathematical needs, architecture to military to archaeology as well as consider some issues on how they can be exploited for artistic purposes.	Dr. Martin Turner (University of Manchester)
Using game-based visualisation to support exploratory learning approaches with serious games applications	The presentation will include an introduction to the Four Dimensional Framework (de Freitas and Oliver, 2006), a framework designed to support designers developing game-based learning more effectively. The presentation will also showcase the first demonstrator emerging from the £2 million UK Department of Trade and Industry's part-funded Serious Games project - the Triage Trainer. The presentation will also include a consideration of some future uses of game-based learning, including alternate reality gaming and mobile gaming, considering their applicability for learning and training.	Dr. Sara De Freitas (Birkbeck University)
Web-based portal delivery visualization	Contemporary artists working within the field of New Media have utilised the Internet as creative space for the past decade. Although the majority of Internet Art projects utilise 2D visualisation technologies, advances in consumer-level computer graphics and processing have afforded artists working in the medium the potential to incorporate 3D content into such artworks. This talk will provide an overview of the main code technologies that are currently used by artists (VRML/X3D, Shockwave and Java/Processing) to create 3D artefacts and worlds for the web. It will then consider the emergence of multi-user 3D environments (such as Second Life) and the possibilities for artists to transition isolated, single-user artworks into forms that embrace the notion of virtual public space.	Mr. Michael Takeo Macgruder (King's College London)
Grid-based visualization	Grid-based visualization This session will explore what is meant by the Grid and the role that visualization has to play in this. We will seek to outline some of the technical, social and creative benefits and challenges such an approach brings.	Prof. Nick Avis (Cardiff university) Dr. Gregory Sporton (Birmingham Institute of Art and Design)
Documentation of a Visualization Project	This session will explore how documentation can be used to address significant issues that arise out of the use of visualisation technologies in research contexts, including those of archiving and preserving digital assets and of ensuring intellectual transparency. It will consider some of the challenges and major initiatives regarding the production of metadata (cataloguing information) and paradata (documentation of interpretative processes) appropriate for visualisation projects with particular reference to arts and humanities contexts.	Dr. Hugh Denard (Kings College London) - 3DVisA
Plenary Discussion: looking for intersections between Scientific/Engineering and Arts/Humanities Visualization	This session will be an open plenary discussion looking for intersections in visualization practices and techniques. Questions for surgery workshop to be handed in.	Dr. Julie Tolmie (Kings College London) Session Chair

19 April: Full day of expert seminars in specialist areas.

Workshop 1 - Visualization Using Commodity Clusters, and Entry level visualization through desktop tools	When scalability and amount of data requiring to be transferred for visualization and analysis become bottlenecks, the locality of visualization processing becomes an important factor to support the quality of system response for near real time data analysis. Visualization on and alongside the national computational grid and the technical challenges that are associated with it are hot topics of current research within the visualization community. This presentation will explain our approach and demonstrate some of our visualization services based on commodity cluster with open source software stack. The second part of the workshop will demonstrate and discuss the support provided by a sample of commercial and some non commercial desktop tools with easy interfaces to getting started with visualization.	Dr. Lakshmi Sastry, Mr. Srikanth Nagella ( Rutherford Appleton Laboratories)
Workshop 2 - Commissioning and Managing Interdisciplinary Visualisation Projects	This workshop will explore some of the ways in which the different disciplinary backgrounds of artists, scientists, engineers, computer scientists and humanities researchers shape their assumptions about and understanding of the nature and purpose of visualisation technologies and of the relationship between the roles of thinkers and doers. Participants will be invited to discuss how collaborative, interdisciplinary projects can anticipate, stimulate and exploit the evolution of interdisciplinary skills and knowledge bases in the course of a project, including what processes may aid in translating terms and concepts across disciplinary boundaries.	Dr. Hugh Denard (Kings College London) - 3DVisA Prof. Roy Kalawsky (Loughborough University)
Workshop 3(a)- Visualization as Interface: Enabling the Construction of Effective Learning Designs	The first part of this workshop will investigate the pedagogically effective design of a series of reusable and mobile learning objects. These objects are designed to enhance the engagement and deepen the learning experience of users through the incorporation of a number of distinct visualization techniques. An archeological learning environment will be explored from the point of view of its novel approach to using visualization as an interface into its complex dataset. The subsequent process of data-mining hierarchies of evidence (intellectual transparency) in the quest for constituent parts, key narratives and evolutions of form will be demonstrated. The methodology for the generation of dynamic visualizations on mobile phones will also be summarized using a series of sports science learning objects. The second part of this workshop will discuss the usability and accessibility issues in websites design.	Mr. Carl Smith (London Metropolitan University)
Workshop 3(b) Websites Usability and Accessibility	Websites Usability and Accessibility	Dr. Nijad Al-Najdawi (Loughborough University)
Workshop 4- e-Viz API to aid Computational Steering and Visualization	e-Viz is an EPSRC project aimed at developing an advanced environment for enabling visual supercomputing; the principle investigator is Prof Nigel John at the University of Wales, Bangor and incorporating researchers at the University of Wales, Swansea, the University of Leeds and the University of Manchester. The focus of the work to be presented is the specific development carried out between the Universities of Manchester and Leeds. This work aims at creating a selection of visualization services using different applications and toolkits, such as VTK, VMD and ParaView. A library and accompanying API has been coded that enables a developer to create an abstract wrapper around visualization applications, providing a steerable interface to different visualization parameters, and dealing with the capture and delivery of remotely rendered visuals. One key feature is that there is a reconfigurable user interface that connects to the abstract visualization wrapper giving the user a common interface to a range of remote visualization services.	Mr. Mark Riding (University of Manchester)
Workshop 5 - Surgery	An open workshop to discuss any visualization issue people want to discuss with a panel of experts	vizNET Team

For further information, or to announce your cross-domain events to these pages,
please contact Dr Julie Tolmie (julie.tolmie@kcl.ac.uk).

vizNET

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Intersections Report: vizNET 2007