Research Cycles

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Research Cycles

• Tamara Munzner
• University of British Columbia
• Computer Science Dept, 2366 Main Mall
• Vancouver BC V6T 1Z4 Canada
• tmm_at_cs.ubc.ca

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Research Cycles
Tamara Munzner, UBC
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Application Domains

• Application-driven research examples
• computational fluid dynamics
• medical imaging
• telecommunications networks
• software engineering

Tamara Munzner, UBC
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Basic Research

• Basic vis research examples
• visual encoding
• psychophysics
• perception

Tamara Munzner, UBC
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Transitional Research

• Success stories so far highly refined techniques
• direct volume rendering
• generating isosurfaces
• marching cubes
• understanding fluid flow
• LIC
• FocusContext navigation

Tamara Munzner, UBC
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Closing The Loop

• Rewarding cross-cycle research
• technique refinement necessary but not sufficient
• design principles from basic research
• evaluate whether applied problem is solved

Tamara Munzner, UBC
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Evaluation

• quantitative, qualitative, design studies
• find other application areas where techniques are
  appropriate
• understanding weaknesses to create better
  techniques for this problem
• understanding strengths to refine principles of
  design

Tamara Munzner, UBC
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Questions I

• Is this characterization useful?
• generic framework instantiated with specific
  examples
• Definition of basic research
• other fields than our own?
• psychophysics, perception, graphics, etc
• basic research in X is application problem in Y
• or specific things within our own?
• visual encoding what else?

Tamara Munzner, UBC
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Questions II

• Is emphasis on cross-cycle appropriate?
• would reward structure for interdisciplinary
  collaboration help provide driving real-world
  problems, or hobble by imposing artificial
  top-down hoops to jump through?
• important to change culture, or over the top?
• should everybody be doing evaluation?

Tamara Munzner, UBC
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Questions III

• If appropriate, how to implement?
• funding policy
• emphasizing interdisciplinary collab as criterion
  for vis funding reviewers
• encouraging divisions outside CS to fund vis
• repositories of tasks/data
• paper acceptance policy

Tamara Munzner, UBC