Challenges in the development of interaction and visualization tools for collaborative applications

Instituto de Informática - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Porto Alegre, RS

Abstract. Current visualization systems are intended to help a scientist or engineer to understand complex structures, processes and phenomena. Usually these systems provide tools that are used through an interactive interface for direct data visualization or more sophisticated methods like browsing and visual queries for exploring and navigating a scientific data base. Modern scientific research in all fields, however, is centered in collaborative work, and collaborators often exchange texts, data files, and images. Moreover, scientists and engineers usually keep records of observations, analysis, sketches and personal annotations, which they share with collaborators by different means. The computer supported cooperative work community has provided for solutions for many of these needs. However, visualization and interaction with scientific data is still a solo activity. In this talk, I will overview current work in tools for supporting collaborative scientific applications, specially visual interfaces, (collaboratory) electronic notebooks, and collaborative visualization.

Carla Freitas received her MSc in Computer Science from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, in 1982, and the PhD in Computer Science also from UFRGS, in 1994. She has been a professor at UFRGS since 1980, where she has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Computer Graphics. During 1996, she worked at International Computer Science Institute and Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA, in the development of a collaborative scientific application. Her current research work and interests includes interactive data and information visualization techniques (for both single-user and collaborative applications) and frameworks for supporting the development of scientific visualization applications.