Visualization for computer security
(dev or eval) Design new visualizations that allow network administrators to monitor large networks of computers for potential security attacks. Administrators should be able to monitor and examine communications, enabling them to spot suspicious communication patterns among the normal traffic. This could be linked to visualizations of processes/ports/users occuring on individual machines to support more detailed analysis of communications. Users of these visualizations might be administrators such as those at the VT Network Ops Center, or individual users protecting their own machines.
Advisor: Glenn Fink
another project description, based on a data aggregation concept.
High-Resolution Visualization
(eval) New display capability for ultra high resolution has the potential to change the way visualization is done. We have constructed a 3x3 tiled LCD display in McBryde 102. This is a prototype for our forthcoming GigaPixel Display project, in which we will construct 2 very large display walls. Experimentation is needed to analyze the visualization capabilities of high-resolution.
(dev) Develop a high-resolution visualization using multi-scale techniques. Potentially based on previous project on visualization for network security.
Advisor: Bob Ball (the display-wall guru)
project desciprtion: Details on Demand
project description: Total Context
Visualizing pathway networks in bioinformatics:
(eval) Background: Biological Pathways are one of the artifacts used by life scientists to represent complex interactions in living organisms at several levels. Pathways appear very similar to graphs, as they are usually created using nodes and edges. Due to their size and complexity, pathways are challenging to visually represent and analyze. The key goal of this project is to evaluate a few pathway visualizations used by the current software tools. A possible outcome of this evaluation can be recommendations for different scenarios or tasks in which a particular technique may be used, as well as new pathway visualization design ideas.
The project will involve following main steps:
(dev) Biologists model the biological functions of organisms using network diagrams. The diagrams can be large, complex, inter-connected, and multi-scale, representing bio functions from anatomical level down to molecular level. Biologists attempt to construct, modify, and verify these diagrams based on experimental data (e.g. gene expression data), simulation, and research literature. Design new visualization display and interaction strategies for such networks that enables biologists to get an overview, drill-down, overlay experimental data, and compare alternative connections. Such a system could have profound impacts in the bioinformatics community.
Advisors: Purvi Saraiya, (and possibly Dr. Karen Duca, VBI)
link to Pathways paper
Usability of information visualization
(dev or eval) Explore usability issues of information visualization:
Advisors: Sujatha Krishnamoorthy
3 project descriptions for Learnable DataMaps, and concept illustration for project idea 1
Information-rich virtual environments (IRVE)
(eval) IRVEs are useful for visualization of data that contains both 3D geometric information (VE) as well as related abstract information (InfoVis). Design and explore new strategies for visualizing such data. Alternate approaches include: methods for interactively linking VEs to InfoVis's using a Snap-like approach with X3D, or methods for visually embedding abstract data within the VE itself. Evaluation project will evaluate such interactive strategies to determine effectiveness, or compare methods under different user tasks.
Advisors: Nicholas Polys
more info:
Multiple-step-aggregation Visualization
(dev) Design visual methods for overviewing 1000s of data columns to help users narrow their selection to smaller number of columns that can be visualized in normal multi-dimensional techniques. e.g. the Census dataset in DataMaps has 8000 columns on 3140 counties. Design tabular aggregation and drill-down strategies, perhaps extending Conklin's polyarchy tables method.
The GROUP BY SQL statement is often used to generate summary of a table. But common users with little database knowledge will meet difficulties to use it. In addition, it only support categorical grouping, other common grouping types in information exploration, such as range grouping, can’t be done directly. In this project, we dedicate to design a tool to effectively visualize the aggregation process in a specific domain, such census data.
In theory part -
In implementation part -
Advisor: Qing Li
link to Aggregation paper.
Multiple-view visualization vs. integrated visualization
(eval) Visualizations can consist of a single integrated view, or of multiple coordinated views. Integrated views have the advantage of placing all of the information in a single context, the disadvantage is that the view could become too complex. Multiple views can simplify a complex visualization by dividing the information into more manageable pieces. Designing multiple view visualizations is a challenging and emerging research area. Currently, high level design guidelines exist for both integrated and multiple view visualizations. But, while integrated views have extensive low level guidelines, multiple views lack low level guidelines. Potential projects include:
Advisor: Beth Yost
Combining visualization and data mining for GIS
(dev+eval) Combining mining and visualization can result in powerful discovery capability. Design visual and interactive methods for combining data mining results into interactive visualizations for GIS data. Our Census DataMaps visualization software could be used as a platform to explore these techniques with CT Lu's algorithms for mining spatial outliers and other patterns. How can mining results be displayed in the visualization? How can users direct the mining from within the vis?
Advisors: Andrew Perez-Lopez
Visualization of usability engineering data
(dev)
Advisors: Chris Catanzaro, Pardha Pyla
Dynamic Linking visualization software for GIS and statistical graphics
(dev) linking tools such as ESRI ArcView, SAS JMP, Spotfire, for powerful new data analysis capabilities.
Advisor: North