HIERARCHICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF VERY LARGE DATA SETS FOR ANALYSIS AND VISUALIZATION

Prof. Bernd Hamann
Center for Image Processing and Integrated Computing (CIPIC)
Department of Computer Science
University of California, Davis

Abstract

One of the most challenging and important problems that the science and engineering communities are facing today -- and even more so in the future -- are representing, visualizing, and interpreting very large data sets. Very large data sets result from computer simulations of complex physical phenomena (e.g., climate modeling, ocean modeling) or from high-resolution imaging e.g., satellite imaging, medical imaging). The technology currently being used to represent extremely large data sets is inappropriate for interactive and efficient data analysis and visualization. It is impossible for a user of a visualization system to ``navigate'' through a data set consisting of millions (very soon billions) of points and analyze it entirely. In this talk, I will present my ideas and my vision to overcome some of the problems associated with the visualization of very large data sets. I will point out the necessity to bring together ideas from approximation theory and geometric modeling (splines), computational geometry (tesselations), and other related fields. I shall point out possible avenues for representing large data sets using hierarchical approaches that facilitate data visualization at various levels of detail.

Biography

Bernd Hamann is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Co-Director of the Center for Image Processing and Integrated Computing (CIPIC) at the University of California, Davis. From 1991 to 1995 he was a faculty member at the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation, where he contributed to the development of computer-aided design (CAD), scientific visualization, and grid generation systems. His primary research interests are visualization, computer-aided geometric design (CAGD), and computer graphics. He is the author of nearly 50 publications and has presented his research at leading conferences in the U.S. and in Europe.

Hamann received a B.S. in computer science, a B.S. in mathematics, and an M.S. in computer science from the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Arizona State University in 1991 (advisor: Gregory M. Nielson).

Hamann was awarded a 1992 Research Initiation Award by the National Science Foundation and a 1996 CAREER Award by the National Science Foundation. In 1995, he received a Hearin-Hess Distinguished Professorship in Engineering while working at the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation.