The Transregional Collaborative Research Centre 248 “Foundations of Perspicuous Software Systems” aims at enabling comprehension in a cyber-physical world with the human in the loop.

From autonomous vehicles to Industry 4.0, from smart homes to smart cities – increasingly computer programs participate in actions and decisions that affect humans. However, our understanding of how these applications interact and what is the cause of a specific automated decision is lagging far behind.

With the increase in cyber-physical technology impacting our lives, the consequences of this gradual loss in understanding are becoming severe. Systems lack support for making their behaviour plausible to their users. And even for technology experts it is nowadays virtually impossible to provide scientifically well-founded answers to questions about the exact reasons that lead to a particular decision, or about the responsibility for a malfunctioning.

The root cause of the problem is that contemporary systems do not have any built-in concepts to explicate their behaviour. They calculate and propagate outcomes of computations, but are not designed to provide explanations. They are not perspicuous.

Seamless support for perspicuity is a formidable and largely unsolved scientific challenge. The Collaborative Research Centre/Transregio 248 takes up this challenge. It lays the scientific foundations for designing, analysing and interacting with computerised systems that explicate their functioning. We call them Perspicuous Systems.

You can visit the project’s official website for further information.

 

Related Publications

  • Responsive Matrix Cells: A Focus+Context Approach for Exploring and Editing Multivariate Graphs.

    Horak, T.; Berger, P.; Schumann, H.; Dachselt, R.; Tominski, C.;

    To appear in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.VIS '20, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.IEEE,2021.

    @article{Horak2020ResponsiveMatrixCells,
       author = {Tom Horak and Philip Berger and Heidrun Schumann and Raimund Dachselt and Christian Tominski},
       title = {Responsive Matrix Cells: A Focus+Context Approach for Exploring and Editing Multivariate Graphs},
       journal = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},
       year = {2021},
       month = {2},
       location = {Salt Lake City, UT, USA},
       publisher = {IEEE}
    }

  • Personal Augmented Reality for Information Visualization on Large Interactive Displays.

    Reipschläger, P.; Flemisch, T.; Dachselt, R.;

    To appear in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Volume 27, Issue 2).VIS '20, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.IEEE,2021.Links:  Video Preview.

    @article{Reipschlaeger2021,
       author = {Patrick Reipschl\"{a}ger and Tamara Flemisch and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {Personal Augmented Reality for Information Visualization on Large Interactive Displays},
       journal = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},
       volume = {27},
       issue = {2},
       year = {2021},
       month = {2},
       location = {Salt Lake City, UT, USA},
       numpages = {11},
       publisher = {IEEE},
       keywords = {Augmented Reality, Information Visualization, InfoVis, Large Displays, Immersive Analytics, Physical Navigation, Multiple Coordinated Views}
    }

  • Visualizing Proofs and the Modular Structure of Ontologies to Support Ontology Repair.

    Alrabbaa, C.; Baader, F.; Dachselt, R.; Flemisch, T.; Koopmann, P.;

    In Proceedings of the 33rd International Workshop on Description Logics.DL '20, Online Conference.2020.Links: Workshop Website.

    @inproceedings{Alraabba2020,
       author = {Christian Alrabbaa and Franz Baader and Raimund Dachselt and Tamara Flemisch and Patrick Koopmann},
       title = {Visualizing Proofs and the Modular Structure of Ontologies to Support Ontology Repair},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the 33rd International Workshop on Description Logics},
       year = {2020},
       month = {09},
       location = {Online Conference},
       numpages = {15}
    }

  • Watch+Strap: Extending Smartwatches with Interactive StrapDisplays.

    Klamka, K.; Horak, T.; Dachselt, R.;

    In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.CHI '20, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.ACM,2020.10.1145/3313831.3376199Links:  Video Preview, Recorded Talk.

    @inproceedings{Klamka2020,
       author = {Konstantin Klamka and Tom Horak and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {Watch+Strap: Extending Smartwatches with Interactive StrapDisplays},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
       year = {2020},
       month = {4},
       location = {Honolulu, Hawaii, USA},
       numpages = {15},
       doi = {10.1145/3313831.3376199},
       publisher = {ACM}
    }

  • Rapid Iron-On Thumbnail

    Rapid Iron-On User Interfaces: Hands-on Fabrication of Interactive Textile Prototypes.

    Klamka, K.; Dachselt, R.; Steimle, J.;

    In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.CHI '20, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.ACM,2020.10.1145/3313831.3376220Links:  Video Preview, Recorded Talk, Talk Slides.

    @inproceedings{Klamka2020b,
       author = {Konstantin Klamka and Raimund Dachselt and J\"{u}rgen Steimle},
       title = {Rapid Iron-On User Interfaces: Hands-on Fabrication of Interactive Textile Prototypes},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
       year = {2020},
       month = {4},
       location = {Honolulu, Hawaii, USA},
       doi = {10.1145/3313831.3376220},
       publisher = {ACM}
    }

  • Demonstrating Rapid Iron-On User Interfaces: Hands-on Fabrication of Interactive Textile Prototypes.

    Klamka, K.; Dachselt, R.; Steimle, J.;

    In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems.CHI '20, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.ACM,2020.10.1145/3334480.3383139Links:  Video Preview.

    @inproceedings{Klamka2020c,
       author = {Konstantin Klamka and Raimund Dachselt and J\"{u}rgen Steimle},
       title = {Demonstrating Rapid Iron-On User Interfaces: Hands-on Fabrication of Interactive Textile Prototypes},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
       year = {2020},
       month = {4},
       isbn = {978-1-4503-6819-3/20/04},
       location = {Honolulu, Hawaii, USA},
       numpages = {4},
       doi = {10.1145/3334480.3383139},
       publisher = {ACM}
    }

  • Augmented Displays: Seamlessly Extending Interactive Surfaces with Head-Mounted Augmented Reality.

    Reipschläger, P.; Engert, S.; Dachselt, R.;

    In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems.CHI '20, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.ACM,2020.10.1145/3334480.3383138

    @inproceedings{Reipschlaeger2020,
       author = {Patrick Reipschl\"{a}ger and Severin Engert and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {Augmented Displays: Seamlessly Extending Interactive Surfaces with Head-Mounted Augmented Reality},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
       year = {2020},
       month = {4},
       isbn = {978-1-4503-6819-3/20/04},
       location = {Honolulu, Hawaii, USA},
       numpages = {4},
       doi = {10.1145/3334480.3383138},
       publisher = {ACM},
       address = {New York},
       keywords = {Augmented Reality, Interactive Surfaces, Augmented Displays, Touch+Pen Interaction, Design, 3D Modeling, Architecture, DesignAR}
    }

  • DesignAR: Immersive 3D-Modeling Combining Augmented Reality with Interactive Displays.

    Reipschläger, P.; Dachselt, R.;

    In Proceedings of the 2019 ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces.ISS '19, Daejeon, Republic of Korea.ACM,29-42,2019.10.1145/3343055.3359718

    @inproceedings{Reipschlaeger2019,
       author = {Patrick Reipschl\"{a}ger and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {DesignAR: Immersive 3D-Modeling Combining Augmented Reality with Interactive Displays},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2019 ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces},
       series = {ISS '19},
       year = {2019},
       month = {11},
       isbn = {978-1-4503-6891-9},
       location = {Daejeon, Republic of Korea},
       pages = {29--42},
       numpages = {13},
       doi = {10.1145/3343055.3359718},
       url = { https://doi.org/10.1145/3343055.3359718},
       acmid = {3359718},
       publisher = {ACM},
       address = {New York, NY, USA},
       keywords = {Augmented Reality, Interactive Surfaces, Augmented Displays, Touch+Pen Interaction, Design, 3D Modeling}
    }

  • BodyHub: A Reconfigurable Wearable System for Clothing.

    Peetz, A.; Klamka, K.; Dachselt, R.;

    In The 32nd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology Adjunct Proceedings.UIST '19, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.ACM,2019.10.1145/3332167.3357108

    @inproceedings{peetz2019_bodyhub,
       author = {Andreas Peetz and Konstantin Klamka and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {BodyHub: A Reconfigurable Wearable System for Clothing},
       booktitle = {The 32nd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology Adjunct Proceedings},
       year = {2019},
       month = {10},
       isbn = {978-1-4503-6817-9/19/10},
       location = {New Orleans, Louisiana, USA},
       numpages = {3},
       doi = {10.1145/3332167.3357108},
       url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3332167.3357108},
       publisher = {ACM},
       address = {New York, NY, USA},
       keywords = {Wearable, E-Textiles, Smart Fabric, Rapid Prototyping, 3D Printing, Wearable Construction Kits, Modular System}
    }

  • Interactive Exploration of Large Decision Tree Ensembles.

    Forberg, J.; Mitschick, A.; Voigt, M.; Dachselt, R.;

    In CHI 2019 Workshop on Human-Centered Machine Learning Perspectives.CHI '19, Glasgow, UK, Scotland.2019.Links: Workshop.

    @inproceedings{Forberg2019,
       author = {Jan Forberg and Annett Mitschick and Martin Voigt and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {Interactive Exploration of Large Decision Tree Ensembles},
       booktitle = {CHI 2019 Workshop on Human-Centered Machine Learning Perspectives},
       series = {CHI '19},
       year = {2019},
       month = {5},
       location = {Glasgow, UK, Scotland}
    }

Student Theses