ITR Collaborative Research: Perceptual Optimization for Data Visualization

人类的大部分智能可以被广泛地描述为识别模式的能力，而视觉系统是我们拥有的最复杂的模式发现机制。在我们所有的感知系统中，视觉占主导地位。据估计，大脑皮层的50%和视觉感受器的70%都是视觉感受器，但显示人类视觉系统所能吸收的信息只是刚刚开始。建议的研究有以下五个要素：a)在人类视觉系统分辨率限制下支持实时动画的显示；b)通过开发人在环优化技术开发和评估感知上接近最优的解决方案；c)一组实验，将测量显示常见信息结构的不同方式的效率，包括图中的路径、流模式的各个方面和重叠表面的形状；d)在灵活的自适应或可调过程中支持数据属性和可视化显示原语之间映射的算法的发展；e)在三个领域的可视化问题中的技术应用：流可视化、覆盖面可视化和大型网络可视化。所提议的研究的智力价值将是牢固地建立信息心理物理学，并将该领域定义为智力努力，从而将现有技术结合成一个有凝聚力的学科。高分辨率显示器将使研究人员能够在人类感知能力的极限下工作，使结果具有长期价值。拟议研究的更广泛影响将包括设计指南，立即可用的设计解决方案，以及算法和信息显示理论。将在以下领域做出重大贡献：流可视化、网络可视化和重叠表面可视化。

Much of human intelligence can be broadly characterized as the ability to identify patterns and the visual system is the most sophisticated pattern finding mechanism that we have. Of all of ourPerceptual systems, vision dominates. It is estimated to engage 50% of the cortex and 70% of all our sensory receptors are visual, but is only just becoming possible to display as much information as the human visual system is capable of absorbing. The proposed research has the following five elements: a) A display that supports real-time animation at the limit of the resolution of the human visual system, b) The development and evaluation of perceptually near-optimal solutions through the development of human-in-the-loop optimization techniques, c) A set of experiments that will measure the efficiency of different ways of displaying common information structures, including paths in graphs, aspects of flow patterns, and the shapes of overlapping surfaces, d) The development of algorithms that support the mapping between data attributes and visual display primitives in a flexible adaptive or tunable process, e) The application of the techniques to visualization problems in three areas: flow visualization, overlaying surface visualization and large network visualization. The intellectual merit of the proposed research will be to firmly establish information psychophysics and define the field as an intellectual endeavor thereby combining existing techniques into a cohesive discipline. The high- resolution display will enable researchers to work at the limits of human perceptual capability endowing the results with long-term value.The broader impacts of the proposed research will include design guidelines, immediately useable design solutions, as well as algorithms and information display theory. Material contributions will be made in the following areas: flow visualization, network visualization, and overlapping surfacevisualization.