The purpose of the Friday Forums is to build an interdisciplinary community of visualization experts whose combined knowledge can facilitate research and promote innovation. Faculty, staff, and students from across the university meet weekly to share their research involving the development and/or application of visualization methodologies.

January 17

Edward Shanken, ISIS

Art and/of Visualization
There is a long history of artists' involvement in developing visualization methods, from the creation of one-point perspective in the renaissance to the representation of Julia Sets in the twentieth century. However, the use of technology by artists is not limited to the concerns of science and engineering. This talk will explore several recent examples of artistic attempts to use interactive visualization tools to explore alternative forms of perception, navigation, and aesthetic experience, often with provocative philosophical implications.

January 24

Colleen Hanlon, Neurobiology

Complex Patterns of Motor Activation Changes in the Brain following Stroke
Unilateral MCA stroke results in a typical pattern of weakness on the contralesional side of the body. Minimal or no deficit is see behaviorally in the upper limb ipsilesional to the stroke. In our research, using functional MRI, we have found stereotypical patterns of neural activation change associated with moving the 'unaffected' limb. This seminar will use visualization technology to illustrate these complex patterns or reorganization in the brain of patients recovered from stroke.

January 31

Dave & Jane Richardson, Biochemistry

Kinemages: Seeing the molecule thru the model
Real-time interactive computer graphics is a very powerful way to visualize and study 3D molecular structures. However, individual molecules are smaller than the wavelength of visible light so there is no such thing as a realistic depiction and multiple representations are suitable and useful. The molecules are composed of thousands of atoms connected in a complex but precise arrangement with little symmetry and no right angles, that form compact structural domains. The details of local 3D interactions confer biological function. We will show how our graphics tools have been optimized for perceiving those 3D relationships: by emphasizing interactive performance, by tuning colors and depth cuing, and by providing multiple representations, animations for comparisons, and contact analysis to evaluate changing conformations.

February 7

Sandy Henriquez, North Carolina Supercomputing Center

Discussion of Scientific Visualization with AVS/Express
AVS/Express is a data analysis and visualization software package available to NC academics at no additional charge through the North Carolina Supercomputing Center. AVS/Express has a network-base graphical interface to build the visualization "program". This talk will provide an overview of AVS/Express functionality and highlight some example applications from Chemistry, Astrophysics, Biomedical Engineering and Environmental Sciences.

February 14

Andrew Ban, Biochemistry

Applying Computational Geometry to Understand Protein-Protein Interactions
Formation of protein-protein complexes rank among the most important and least well understood molecular phenomena inside the cell. Central to the understanding of the interactions leading to complex formation is characterization and analysis of the interfaces formed between proteins. This talk will focus on an interface construct based upon concepts in computational geometry which is being applied to 3D protein structural data in an effort to elucidate the details of protein-protein interactions.

February 21

Mike Pickett, Office of Information Technology

Networks, Wet Labs, and Forests: An effort towards integrating and visualizing the physical spaces of Duke
More and more administrative questions lend themselves to being answered by the visual representation of data.

• Where can you find wireless network access on campus?
• How much lab space do we have (and where is it!)?
• "Let me explain why - I - need more lab space to do my work."
• How is Duke property used and how is it represented on Durham County's tax maps?
• Show me how the space in the new building is going to be used.
• Where is the other end of this wire...?

This talk will describe some of the traditional and emerging uses of data visualization to help get Duke's business accomplished and discuss ways we might approach these tasks.

February 28

Pat Halpin, Environmental Science & Policy

Visualization using Geographic Information Systems
In this presentation we will demonstrate visualization of geographic data using raster, vector and Triangular Irregular Network models for terrestrial and marine applications. We will demonstrate planar geographic displays, "3D" renderings and dynamic flythroughs for environmental data representation and analysis. We will also demonstrate applications of internet map server technologies for the delivery of GIS visualizations to clients on a distributed networks.

March 7

John Taormina, Art & Art History

Baying at the Moon: Implementing Luna Imaging's Insight at Duke University
Luna Imaging Inc.'s Insightr software (www.lunaimaging.com) allows organizations to manage, access, use, and present digital collections using the Internet. John Taormina, Director of the Dept. of Art and Art History's Visual Resources Center (VRC), will discuss the VRC's role in the implementation of Insightr as the visual component of Duke University's comprehensive digital library initiative. With the support of the Perkins Library and a CIT Grant, the VRC developed an Insightr "collection" of approximately 4,000 digital images and data records between May and December 2002, as part of the Insightr startup at Duke, for two art history courses offered in Spring 2003 (Introduction to the History of Art I and Chinese Buddhist Art). The initial development and continuing growth of the art history Insightr collection, the acquisition of a comprehensive text database, metadata issues, data standards, and workflow procedures will be discussed.

March 14

SPRING BREAK

March 21

Roni Avissar, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Using Vis5D in Environmental Fluid Dynamics
Environmental fluids (atmosphere and water) have a complex three-dimensional structure that varies rapidly with time. To better understand and interpret the behavior of these fluids, it is essential to use sophisticated visualization software. In this seminar, a demonstration of the use of Vis5D for atmospheric, ocean and lake dynamics will be illustrated.

March 28

John Bonnett, Interactive Media Lab, National Research Council, Canada

The Oral Tradition in 3D: Harold Innis, Information Visualization and the 3D Virtual Buildings Project
One of the key challenges that historians face -- especially at the university level -- is enabling students to see the proper relationship between a historical representation, and the object or event to which it refers. Most students see an absolute correspondence. Historians seek to show them that the relationship is necessarily imperfect. In this talk, I present the efforts of the 3D Virtual Buildings Project to engender in students a more sophisticated understanding of the strengths and limitations of historical representations, be they books, articles, or 3D models. I will show the project's debt to the writings of the Canadian communication theorist Harold Innis, who noted that not all forms of communication are equal in their capacity to represent a concept. I will also demonstrate the project's pedagogy, namely use of the process of 3D computer model construction to enable students to see the proper relationship between model and referent.

April 4

Kelly Heaton, ISIS

New Media Art
New media art investigates the expressive potential of new technologies. The results can inspire, delight and horrify us with evidence of our changing world. I will present several examples from my own art, as well as the work of contemporaries. Duke web site: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~kelly/

April 11

Jam Jenkins, Computer Science

Syzygy: a Framework for Distributing VR Applications
The many interactive components of virtual reality applications require demanding computation and organization of information. Syzygy provides a framework for distributing the application to a diverse set of machines in order to coordinate the interactive components, rendering, and data collection.

For more information, please contact
Rachael Brady rachael.brady@duke.edu

Organized by
Computational Science, Engineering, and Medicine (CSEM),
Visualization Technology Group (VTG), and
Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS)