CALL FOR PARTICIPATION GI-Dagstuhl Research Seminar: HUMAN-CENTERED VISUALIZATION ENVIRONMENTS 5-8 March 2006, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany Organizers: A. Kerren (Univ. of Kaiserslautern, DE), A. Ebert (Univ. of Kaiserslautern, DE), J. Meyer (Univ. of California - Irvine, US) _____________________________________________________________________ Information Visualization is in the focus of many computer science researchers. This kind of visualization combines several aspects of different research areas, such as Scientific Visualization, Human- Computer Interaction, Data Mining, Graph Drawing, or Computer Graphics. In contrast to Scientific Visualization, it focuses on the visualization of abstract information, i.e., there is no possibility to map this information into the physical world in most cases. Mostly, researchers try to find the best visual representation of the given information. That is the core problem of each visualization but sometimes the seemingly best representation does not suffice if the human information processing and the human capability of information reception are not adequately taken into account. Additionally, these aspects depend on the data to be visualized and on the user's background. During the development process of Human-Centered Visualization Environments, users as well as tasks/functions of the visualization tool should play the same decisive role as the visual representation (e.g., 2D versus 3D). Human-Centered Visualization is one of the large challenges of Information Visualization, Software Visualization, and many application areas such as the visualization of biological/biochemical or geographical information. In this context, new developments in the areas of graphical input/ output devices and interaction techniques are becoming more and more important. For example, visualizations on mobile devices or complex 3D-displays (e.g., Cave or PowerWall) offer new possibilities, but also introduce new problems that have to be analyzed. AIM: The scientific fundamentals of the topic should be elaborated and the participants should be sensitized for difficulties that occur during practical applications. Furthermore, all participants get to know each other; they can identify common research interests as well as urgent needs for research in special subareas of the seminar topic. This could be a promising base for future cooperations. All participants should be young researchers in computer science or related disciplines working, starting to work, or simply being interested in the seminar's area. Topics from the area are assigned to the participants who will prepare a comprehensive overview paper on the selected topics. As first starting point for this overview, they will get original papers from the organizers. During the seminar, this work will be presented and discussed. The official language of the seminar is English and the number of participants is limited to 20. After the seminar, we plan to combine the reviewed papers to a seminar proceedings that will be published if the papers are of sufficient quality. TOPICS: Topics of interest for this seminar include, but are not limited to: Human-Centered Aspects: Usability, Human Information Processing, Training & Education, Information Overload, Hypothesis Checking, Prior Knowledge, User Aims, Human-Computer Interfaces (HCI), Requirement Analysis, ... Information Classification: Graphs & Networks, Non-spatial vs. Spatial Data, Structured vs. Unstructured Data, Text within Visualizations, Dynamically Changing Data, ... Important Criteria: Metaphors, Aesthetics, Scalability, ... Visualization Techniques: Level of Detail (LOD), Navigation, Focus & Context, Coordinated Views, Distortion, Lenses, Alternate Geometry, Optics, Color, Lightness, Focus, Shape, 2D/2.5D/3D, ... Next Generation Interaction: Haptics, Sound, Smell, Gesture Recognition, Exploration, Visual Analytics, ... Displays and Representations: Multimodality, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Mobile Devices, 3D-displays, Representation Forms, WWW (Distributed Visualization), ... Challenges: Multiscale Visualization, Data Integration, Statistics, Simulations, Analyses, ... Selected Domains and Applications: Software Visualization, Biomedical Visualization, Geographical Visualization, Security, ... Evaluations: Empirical Studies (Experiments), Formative/Summative Evaluation, Quantitative/Qualitative Evaluation, ... TIME AND LOCATION: The seminar is organized as GI-Dagstuhl Research Seminar No. 06102 from March 5, 2006 (arrival) to March 8, 2006 in the International Conference and Research Center for Computer Science at Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany. It will be possible to stay till Thursday if needed. Dagstuhl is ideally suited for a research seminar because of its excellent library and special atmosphere. Registration fee for all participants will be 100 Euro. This extremely low fee is made possible through the sponsorship of the Gesellschaft fuer Informatik (GI). More information about this seminar including travel information and time schedule can be found at the following web page: http://www-hagen.informatik.uni-kl.de/~kerren/gidag06/ APPLICATION: Participants are selected on the basis of an excellent scientific qualification. They can apply by sending a curriculum vitae (with list of publications) and a letter of reference from a professor. It is also possible to indicate the topics of your interest! Applications should be sent (PDF via email is preferred) by October 23, 2005 to: Dr. Andreas Kerren University of Kaiserslautern Computer Science Department P.O.Box 3049 D-67653 Kaiserslautern, Germany Email: kerren@informatik.uni-kl.de Notification of participation and assignment of topics will be effected on November 2, 2005.