Call for Submissions

All those working in the area of visualization are invited to submit work for the vizNET Users of Visualization Showcase. The goal is to disseminate good practice and provide stimulation to users and developers of visualization in all application domains. This is the third year of this Showcase.

The closing date for submission is Friday 14th March 2008

The criteria for the Showcase centre on the usefulness (for example measured by the fresh insight gained in the application domain) and novelty (for example the application of known visualization techniques to new domains, or the application of new techniques to existing domains).

Prize

The Eurographics UK Chapter (EGUK) will host a session to showcase the winning entries at their annual conference, TPCG ’08 which will be held at the University of Manchester, UK June 9th-11th. EGUK will pay for a full conference ticket - entrance, tutorials, social and accommodation - for the winning submission. Selected entries will also be featured on the VizNET website.

Judging Criteria

The submission awarded first prize will demonstrate innovation in the use of visualization. The judges will take into account the usefulness, novelty and the impact that the visualization has had in the application domain, in other words the fitness for purpose of the submission. A successful submission will show a significant understanding of the needs and motivations of the users.

Fundamental characteristics that the judges will expect to find in a successful submission include:

• Innovation
• Usability
• Usefulness
• Degree of finish
• Meeting declared aims
• Awareness of ‘state of the art’
• Technical ingenuity

The judges’ decision is final. They may, at their discretion, give private advice or comments to submitters of work on future development, but will not openly discuss their decisions nor respond to direct questioning on the reasons for decisions.

Rules for submission

The submission must include details of all the authors and a brief statement (no more than one A4 page) indicating the aims and status of the work Emphasise what is novel about your use of visualization, and provide evidence of the added value that is provided to the application domain.

In addition, at least one the following must be included:

• Images from the application showing computer generated graphics
• a movie file of the application in use
• a runnable executable to demonstrate the application
• a reference to a persistent web site

These materials should be supplied electronically either as file attachments in email or uploaded on the VizNET Wiki.http://wiki.viznet.ac.uk For winning entries, these materials will be added to the Visualization Showcase section of the VizNET web site.

Submissions should be received by Lakshmi Sastry (m.sastry@rl.ac.uk) on or before Friday14 March 2008. Submissions received after this closing time will not be considered.

In addition to the electronic media, each submission should contain:

1. the name, address, telephone, FAX, email and affiliation of a contactable submitter, as well as a signed and dated statement indicating willingness to accept the rules of the competition and for VizNET to include the work, if selected, in the VizNET Visualization Showcase web site.
2. VizNet expects the submission winner to allow VizNET to publish their entry at the VizNET website. VizNET may approach the creators of selected submissions for agreement to publish their entry on the VizNET website.

Showcase participants from previous years

Last year the competition was won by Dr Lakshmi Sastry & her team at STFC e-Science Centre for “Data exploration using remote commodity visualization cluster. Dr. Nick Holliman and his colleagues, at University of Durham the year before for “Cosmic cookery: Visualizing galaxy formation using observed and simulated data.

Other notable participants and Runners-up include: “So you think you can design a jet engine” by Philip Withers and his team from University of Manchester, “Massive data visualisation using real time ray tracing” by Dr. Steven Parker and Group at University of Utah, “Hyperstreamball visualisation of second order tensor” from Jia Liu of Manchester University, “Facilitating visualisation of large scale data in virtual human atrium simulations” by Dr. Ian Grimstead and team from Cardiff University and “Visualisations of a nuclear pressure vessel” by Joanna Leng and colleagues from Manchester and Durham Universities.