Natural Magic Lens Interaction for Graph Visualization

Focusing on the specific tool of magic lenses, the goal of this PhD work is to investigate how natural user interfaces may support and even enhance data exploration in front of a large vertical display. Therein, graph visualization has been selected as the main application case. The overarching contribution of this dissertation regards the systematic analysis and extension of magic lenses focusing both on function and flexibility as a tool as well as the iterative design and development of diverse interaction techniques for magic lens applications on large vertical displays.

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Interactive Lenses: Theory, Categorization, and Application

An interactive lens is a lightweight tool to solve a localized visualization problem
by temporarily altering a selected part of the visual representation of the data.

There have been various uses of lenses and very diverse lens functions in research. Within this project, we categorized research works on lenses by their data type, addressed interaction tasks, effect class, and effect extend as well as the interaction modalities that were applied to move and configure the lens.

  • Interactive Lenses for Visualization: An Extended Survey.

    Tominski, C.; Gladisch, S.; Kister, U.; Dachselt, R.; Schumann, H.;

    In Computer Graphics Forum (Band 36).173-200,2017.10.1111/cgf.12871

    @article{Tominski2017_CGF,
       author = {Christian Tominski and Stefan Gladisch and Ulrike Kister and Raimund Dachselt and Heidrun Schumann},
       title = {Interactive Lenses for Visualization: An Extended Survey},
       journal = {Computer Graphics Forum},
       volume = {36},
       year = {2017},
       month = {9},
       isbn = {1467-8659},
       pages = {173--200},
       numpages = {28},
       doi = {10.1111/cgf.12871},
       url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cgf.12871},
       keywords = {Visualization, interaction, magic lenses}
    }

MultiLens: Multi-Functional Multi-Touch Lenses

Up to now, interaction with lenses was mostly limited to single-user, single-function lenses. To overcome these limitations, we designed configurable touch-enabled magic lenses that allow manipulating functions, parameters, and combinations of lenses on interactive surfaces, making the lens a generic multi-purpose tool. To interactively adjust these lenses, we contribute a novel multi-touch menu technique using a widget-based approach with a drag-snap slider for relative parameter adjustment. In addition, we propose a continuous gesture set for rapidly changing lenses and their primary parameters in one seamless phrase.

  • MultiLens: Fluent Interaction with Multi-Functional Multi-Touch Lenses for Information Visualization.

    Kister, U.; Reipschläger, P.; Dachselt, R.;

    In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces.ISS '16, Niagara Falls, ON, Canada.ACM,139-148,2016.10.1145/2992154.2992168

    @inproceedings{Kister2016_MultiLens,
       author = {Ulrike Kister and Patrick Reipschl\"{a}ger and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {MultiLens: Fluent Interaction with Multi-Functional Multi-Touch Lenses for Information Visualization},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces},
       year = {2016},
       month = {11},
       isbn = {978-1-4503-4248-3},
       location = {Niagara Falls, ON, Canada},
       pages = {139--148},
       numpages = {10},
       doi = {10.1145/2992154.2992168},
       url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2992154.2992168},
       acmid = {2992168},
       publisher = {ACM},
       address = {New York, NY, USA},
       keywords = {Multi-touch interaction, information visualization, magic lenses, focus+context, graph exploration, graph lenses}
    }

GraSp: Mobile Lenses at Large Vertical Displays

In this work, we combine spatially-aware mobile devices with a wall-sized display. We investigate mobile devices as lens representations handing the user a personal toolbox of data exploration tools and lenses to analyze graph data. While the large display presents the context visualization of which parts can be selected, the mobile provides detail views, alternative encodings, and additional tools for exploring the data.

BodyLenses: Embodied Magic Lenses and Personal Territories for Wall-sized Displays

We introduce the concept of BodyLenses, special kinds of magic lenses for wall-sized displays that are mainly controlled by body interactions. We present a comprehensive design space and investigated a number of design alternatives proposing solutions for lens positioning, dynamic shape modification, distance-based parameter mappings and the use of BodyLenses as portable tool belts. As a result, the magic lens becomes a personal multi-purpose tool adaptable to many diverse application cases including data exploration.

  • BodyLenses – Embodied Magic Lenses and Personal Territories for Wall Displays.

    Kister, U.; Reipschläger, P.; Matulic, F.; Dachselt, R.;

    In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces.ITS '15, Funchal/Madeira, Portugal.ACM,117-126,2015.10.1145/2817721.2817726

    @inproceedings{Kister2015_BodyLenses,
       author = {Ulrike Kister and Patrick Reipschl\"{a}ger and Fabrice Matulic and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {BodyLenses \&\#8211; Embodied Magic Lenses and Personal Territories for Wall Displays},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces},
       year = {2015},
       month = {11},
       isbn = {978-1-4503-3899-8},
       location = {Funchal/Madeira, Portugal},
       pages = {117--126},
       numpages = {10},
       doi = {10.1145/2817721.2817726},
       url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2817721.2817726},
       acmid = {2817726},
       publisher = {ACM},
       address = {New York, NY, USA},
       keywords = {Body-centric interaction, embodied interaction, territoriality, magic lenses, proxemics}
    }

Further Publications

  • Supporting Graph Exploration Tasks on Display Walls using Spatially-aware Mobile Devices.

    Kister, U.; Klamka, K.; Dachselt, R.;

    In Poster Program of the 2016 IEEE Conference on Information Visualization (InfoVis).InfoVis '16, Baltimore, MD, USA.2016.

    @inproceedings{fixme,
       author = {Ulrike Kister and Konstantin Klamka and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {Supporting Graph Exploration Tasks on Display Walls using Spatially-aware Mobile Devices},
       booktitle = {Poster Program of the 2016 IEEE Conference on Information Visualization (InfoVis)},
       year = {2016},
       month = {10},
       location = {Baltimore, MD, USA},
       numpages = {2}
    }

  • Supporting Interactive Graph Analysis Using Adjustable Magic Lenses.

    Kister, U.;

    In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces.ITS '15, Funchal/Madeira, Portugal.ACM,469-474,2015.10.1145/2817721.2820989

    @inproceedings{Kister2015_DoctSymp,
       author = {Ulrike Kister},
       title = {Supporting Interactive Graph Analysis Using Adjustable Magic Lenses},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces},
       year = {2015},
       month = {11},
       isbn = {978-1-4503-3899-8},
       location = {Funchal/Madeira, Portugal},
       pages = {469--474},
       numpages = {6},
       doi = {10.1145/2817721.2820989},
       url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2817721.2820989},
       acmid = {2820989},
       publisher = {ACM},
       address = {New York, NY, USA},
       keywords = {magic lenses, information visualization, multi-touch, embodied interaction, graphs, territoriality}
    }

  • Mapping Tasks to Interactions for Graph Exploration and Editing.

    Gladisch, S.; Kister, U.; Tominski, C.; Dachselt, R.; Schumann, H.;

    In IEEE Conference on Information Visualization (InfoVis).InfoVis'15, Chicago, USA.IEEE,2015.

    @inproceedings{Gladisch2015_vis,
       author = {Stefan Gladisch and Ulrike Kister and Christian Tominski and Raimund Dachselt and Heidrun Schumann},
       title = {Mapping Tasks to Interactions for Graph Exploration and Editing},
       booktitle = {IEEE Conference on Information Visualization (InfoVis)},
       year = {2015},
       month = {10},
       location = {Chicago, USA},
       numpages = {2},
       publisher = {IEEE}
    }

  • Mapping Tasks to Interactions for Graph Exploration and Graph Editing on Interactive Surfaces.

    Gladisch, S.; Kister, U.; Tominski, C.; Dachselt, R.; Schumann, H.;

    In arXiv:1504.07844.2015.

    @misc{Gladisch2015_TechnReport,
       author = {Stefan Gladisch and Ulrike Kister and Christian Tominski and Raimund Dachselt and Heidrun Schumann},
       title = {Mapping Tasks to Interactions for Graph Exploration and Graph Editing on Interactive Surfaces},
       booktitle = {arXiv:1504.07844},
       year = {2015},
       month = {4},
       numpages = {21},
       url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.07844},
       keywords = {graph manipulation, graph exploration, graph tasks, interaction mapping}
    }

  • Multi-Touch Manipulation of Magic Lenses for Information Visualization.

    Kister, U.; Reipschläger, P.; Dachselt, R.;

    In Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces.ITS '14, Dresden, Germany.ACM,431-434,2014.10.1145/2669485.2669528

    @inproceedings{kister-14-its,
       author = {Ulrike Kister and Patrick Reipschl\"{a}ger and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {Multi-Touch Manipulation of Magic Lenses for Information Visualization},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces},
       year = {2014},
       month = {11},
       isbn = {978-1-4503-2587-5},
       location = {Dresden, Germany},
       pages = {431--434},
       numpages = {4},
       doi = {10.1145/2669485.2669528},
       url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2669485.2669528},
       acmid = {2669528},
       publisher = {ACM},
       address = {New York, NY, USA},
       keywords = {magic lenses, graph lenses, multi-touch interaction, information visulization}
    }

  • STAR Lenses

    A Survey on Interactive Lenses in Visualization.

    Tominski, C.; Gladisch, S.; Kister, U.; Dachselt, R.; Schumann, H.;

    In EuroVis State-of-the-Art Reports.Eurographics Association, Swansea, Wales, UK.The Eurographics Association,2014.10.2312/eurovisstar.20141172

    @conference{Tominski14,
       author = {Christian Tominski and Stefan Gladisch and Ulrike Kister and Raimund Dachselt and Heidrun Schumann},
       title = {A Survey on Interactive Lenses in Visualization},
       booktitle = {EuroVis State-of-the-Art Reports},
       year = {2014},
       month = {6},
       location = {Swansea, Wales, UK},
       numpages = {20},
       doi = {10.2312/eurovisstar.20141172},
       url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.2312/eurovisstar.20141172},
       publisher = {The Eurographics Association},
       keywords = {information visualization, magic lenses}
    }

  • T4 – Transparent and Translucent Tangibles on Tabletops.

    Büschel, W.; Kister, U.; Frisch, M.; Dachselt, R.;

    In Proceedings of the 12th International Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces 2014.AVI '14, Como, Italy.ACM,2014.

    @inproceedings{TransparentTangibles-2014-AVI,
       author = {Wolfgang B\"{u}schel and Ulrike Kister and Mathias Frisch and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {T4 \&\#8211; Transparent and Translucent Tangibles on Tabletops},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the 12th International Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces 2014},
       year = {2014},
       month = {5},
       location = {Como, Italy},
       numpages = {8},
       publisher = {ACM},
       address = {New York, NY, USA},
       keywords = {Tangible User Interfaces, Transparent Tangibles, Interactive Surfaces}
    }

  • Translucent Tangibles on Tabletops: Exploring the Design Space.

    Frisch, M.; Kister, U.; Büschel, W.; Langner, R.; Dachselt, R.;

    In CHI 2013 Workshop on Blended Interaction - Envisioning Future Collaborative Interactive Spaces.CHI '13, Paris, France.2013.

    @article{Frisch-2013-CHI,
       author = {Mathias Frisch and Ulrike Kister and Wolfgang B\"{u}schel and Ricardo Langner and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {Translucent Tangibles on Tabletops: Exploring the Design Space},
       booktitle = {CHI 2013 Workshop on Blended Interaction - Envisioning Future Collaborative Interactive Spaces},
       year = {2013},
       month = {4},
       location = {Paris, France},
       numpages = {6},
       keywords = {Tangible User Interfaces, Blended Interaction, Interactive Surfaces}
    }

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