UK AVS+UNIRAS User Group
Annual Conference 4/5 November 2002Programme

For overall details of the conference and the venue, look here UAUUG Conference 2002.

Monday 4th November

Tuesday 5th November

Keynote Talk:

Prof. Bob Spence, Imperial College
Doors, books, perfume and maps illustrate some fundamentals of Information Visualization
When exploiting the potential of information visualization it is often useful to stand back from our concern with the computer and look more closely at the person who has to make use of a visualization tool. In this way we frequently gain insight into how those tools may be invented and improved. In my talk I shall examine and comment upon four topics: the relevance of mental models, the issue of affordances, the problems of navigation in information spaces and the relatively new and intriguing technique of Rapid Serial Visual Presentation. My remarks will be liberally illustrated with examples.

Bob Spence has been responsible for innovation and research in human-computer interaction for over 30 years, a period during which he also acquired an international reputation in engineering design.

Other speakers:

Roger Fleuty, Advanced Visual Systems
The First Time User to AVS/Express
AVS/Express Version 6.2 introduces a new User Layer to the software and this talk will present a variety of common data samples and show how the first time user creates visualizations from their data.

Paul Lever, Manchester Visualization Centre
Perception

Tobias Schiebeck, International AVS Centre, Manchester Visualization Centre
Writing Modules for AVS/Express
This presentation is an introduction on how to write a module for AVS/Express. It begins with an explanation of the general structures of AVS/Express such as primitives, groups, modules, macros and libraries followed by the generation of a simple module. Modules in AVS/Express can be written as V-code only or C/C++/Fortran modules. This tutorial will show how to write a V-only module and a C-module. The C-module needs some V-code definitions in order to integrate the C-code into AVS/Express. Finally this presentation will explain how to ensure that the module is transferable between different users and the advantages of the IAC Project Organization Guidelines for this purpose.

John Stringer, Advanced Visual Systems
Getting to Grips with Gsharp
Based on the new release of Gsharp (V3.3), this talk will demonstrate the ways and methods for using Gsharp across a number of data areas.

Joanna Leng & Lee Margetts, Manchester Visualization Centre
AVS/Express Tools To Aid The Visualization Of Finite Elements Data Used In Engineering
The department of engineering at the University of Manchester have a library of utilities that allows them to perform finite element analysis and visualize the mesh before and after the analysis. This allows the finite element (FE) analysis and the visualization system to share certain functions i.e. interpolation and means that there is a standard way of structuring their data. The visualization system does not provide all the functionality they need and now the original developer has left the department they have turned to AVS/Express.

FE data is similar to AVS/Express cell data. Importing cell data into AVS/Express is not as easy as importing data that maps into uniform, rectilinear or irregular fields all of which can be read using a field file descriptor. However FE cell data maps into AVS/Express UCD (Unstructured Cell Data) which can be read in with .inp files. There are inherent reasons why producing an AVS/Express reader for the FE data or translating the data into a UCD file is not appropriate. Instead a field file descriptor format has been developed for the FE data that allows all past, present and future FE data to be easily read. Now the FE engineering community have data within AVS/Express there is new functionality is being added.

James Perrin, Manchester Visualization Centre
Implementing A Device Independent Haptics System for AVS/Express
The latest generation of haptic (force feedback) devices are no longer bound to hi-tech research establishments, these robust desktop peripherals are being sold to engineers, scientists and even artists to provide literally a new level of interaction with their studies. MVC resently obtained a Phantom Desktop device as part of a ReachIn immersive system. In this talk I shall describe these systems and dicuss the issues in bringing support for these devices to AVS/Express. The talk will also cover future possiblities such as use with AVS/Express Multi-pipe.

Mary McDerby, Manchester Visualization Centre
The Egeydi Project
Caroline Wilkinson, Art in Medicine, University of Manchester is a medical artist who rebuilds the facial features of skulls - whether they belong to murder victims, ancient burials - bog people, ancient royal burials etc. Caroline wanted to create a Stereo Lithography data file from some DICOM data. This talk encompasses the approaches taken and the user's experience on how this was done using AVS/Express.

Mary McDerby, Manchester Visualization Centre
Visualization Cookbook Using Gsharp
Following the success of the `Visualization Cookbook using AVS/Express' the UAUUG Committee agreed to fund a project to create a `Visualization Cookbook using Gsharp' which would benefit the community. Manchester Visualization Centre undertook this project, and the outcome will be presented.

John Kings, University of Birmingham, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Visualisation of weather using GSharp
Global weather observations are available in near real-time via the Global Telecommunications System (GTS). This presentation will show how GSharp can be used to produce weather charts and animated sequences. A further development of this project will be to integrate GSharp Web Edition with the data feed from the GTS in real time.

Stephen Wilkes, Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit
Landscape Visualisation & Archaeological Applications
An overview of the development of multi-spectral, hyper-spectral and 3D visualisations for archaeological practise, focusing on airborne and ground based LiDAR survey and developing Hyper-spectral imaging.

Jean-Louis Ligneau, Hewlett-Packard
Scalable Visualization, pushing the limits further
Birmingham University is the process of setting up a dedicated Spatial and Visualisation Centre with Hewlett-Packard (HP) as the primary partner. As part of the partnership, HP will be installing one of their high-end sv6 scalable visualisation systems (see URL below) in this centre.
http://www.hp.com/workstations/products/immersive/sv6/overview.html
This talk will discuss HP's developments at a strategic level, especially in the graphics area, covering their current and potential offerings, market analysis and target area.

Peter Kelly, Advanced Visual Systems
Company Update on technology and future release plans
The latest technology advances from Advanced Visual Systems will be covered in summary form and an indication of the future directions and capabilities that the company aims to take graphics and visualization.

Tobias Schiebeck, International AVS Centre, Manchester Visualization Centre
An update on activities at the IAC

Mikael Jern, Advanced Visual Systems
Collaborative Desktop Document Visualization
Work involved in the integration of dynamic 2D- and 3D visualisation with innovative documentation technology will be presented, showing the progress made within a number of EC-funded projects.