Projects & Publications

Websites

www.VAIBLACK.de

In May 2007 I did a complete redesign and reimplementation of Jana Northe's photography website VAIBLACK.de, migrating it from a discontenting Flash interface to a nice, clean XHTML page. Jana's new website is implemented using PHP and MySQL. She is now able to manage her galleries and photos from a webinterface.
One of my design aims was to make the website as much independent from screen resolution as possible. In most parts we worked together on layout & design ideas to give Jana's website her personal note and to bring her photos into focus. The final results satisfy her, her visitors and me. So if you like, take a look at her great photos and leave a comment in her guestbook.

VAIBLACK.de - Gallery Selection
VAIBLACK.de - Gallery Selection
VAIBLACK.de - Photo Selection
VAIBLACK.de - Photo Selection
VAIBLACK.de - Photo Viewing
VAIBLACK.de - Photo Viewing
VAIBLACK.de - Gallery Management
Gallery Management
VAIBLACK.de - Photo Management
Photo Management

geoURL.divnull.net

geourl.divnull.net
geourl.divnull.net

In November 2006 I implemented a prototype of an interface that connects a website with geo-coordinates. For this project I used AJAX, the google maps api, PHP, and MySQL. The interface shows other websites within a given distance around a selected website as markers on a map. Selecting a marker shows details (link, description) for the website(s) at that location. A level of detail function is used to avoid cluttering of markers, if websites are very close to each other at the current resolution of the map.

Diplom

Creating an Interactive Visualization of Mountain Pine Beetle Simulation Data

For my Diplom project (August 2005 - March 2006) I was a resaerch assistant at the Innovations in Visualization Laboratory at the University of Calgary. I worked in collaboration with the Pacific Forestry Centre. The goal of the project was to create a tool for the interactive visualization of Mountain Pine Beetle Simulation Data.

Thesis Abstract

In this thesis I develop a tool to interactively explore a high dimensional simulation space, to visualize, and to compare its simulation results at different levels. To create a tool that meets user requirements as well as data characteristics, I identify visualization objectives with domain experts from the Pacific Forestry Centre, Victoria. Based on this objectives I analyze and compare several visualization techniques, design and implement the Landscape Unit Mountain Pine Beetle Key (LuMPB Key). The LuMPB Key is a decision support tool that allows landscape managers to compare different mountain pine beetle (MPB) management scenarios at various simulation conditions.

This research is driven by a devastating outbreak of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. Many efforts are taken to get a better understanding of the beetles behavior, to predict future impacts, and to provide forest managers with information upon which they can base their decisions regarding the beetles. As a part of these efforts, complex simulation models of MPB activities on a landscape scale are being utilized. With the LuMPB Key I provide access to the huge number of results created by these simulations.

Teaser Images

LuMPB Key - Landscape Unit Selection
LuMPB Key - Landscape Unit Selection
LuMPB Key - Case Selection
LuMPB Key - Case Selection using a TableLens Interface
LuMPB Key - Case Window
LuMPB Key - Case Window for comparing management scenarios

Time Rings - Front View
Time Rings
Time Rings - Side View
Side View

Links

Publications

Lothar Schlesier, Creating an Interactive Visualization of Mountain Pine Beetle Simulation Data, Diplom Thesis (Diplomarbeit), Otto-von-Guericke-University of Magdeburg, Germany, 2006. (PDF, 101 pages, 12.29 MB) (BibTex)

Lothar Schlesier, Josie Hughes, Andrew Fall, and M. Sheelagh T. Carpendale. The LuMPB Key: A Multiple View Interface to Explore High Dimensional Mountain Pine Beetle Simulation Data. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Coordinated and Multiple Views in Exploratory Visualization (CMV 2006, July 4th, 2006, London, Great Britain), pages 31-41, 2006. IEEE Press. (PDF, 11 pages, 0.64 MB) (BibTex) (DOI)

Torre Zuk, Lothar Schlesier, Petra Neumann, Mark S. Hancock, and M. Sheelagh T. Carpendale. Heuristics for Information Visualization Evaluation. In Proceedings of the Workshop Beyond Time and Errors: Novel Evaluation Methods for Information Visualization (BELIV 2006), held in conjunction with the Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI 2006, May 23-26, 2006, Venice, Italy), New York, NY, USA. (PDF, 6 pages, 0.21 MB) (BibTex)

Software Project

Smage - Smart Images

For my software project, I worked on embedding context information into images using digital watermarking techniques -- creating so called Smart Images. Such information could be other images, texts, dictioary entries, or comic speech bubbles. Users can explore such images mainly with mouse interactions. My main part in this project was, to create plugins for common webrowser that allow to access Smart Iamges that are embedded into webpages.

Links

Publication

Henry Sonnet, Andrea Unger, Lothar Schlesier, Thomas Vogel, Tobias Isenberg, and Thomas Strothotte. Interactive Images using Illustration Watermarks: Techniques, Study, and Applications. Technical Report, FIN Preprint Series 7/2006, Department of Computer Science, Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg, Germany, June 2006. (PDF, 26 pages, 14.12 MB) (BibTex) (Link)

Bachelor

Eastern Perspective - Multi-Projection-Images

For my Bachelor I did an intership at the Innovis Laboratory at the University of Calgary. The goal of this project was to develop and implement a rendering pipeline that allows to create multiple projections images from 3D data. This work was inspired by Chinese Landscape painting. In such paintings, artists use different types of projections and viewpoints for different parts of a scence. Thus, it is possible to emphasize interesting aspects of an object or to distinguish between different objects.
Single Projection Image
Single Projection Image
Multi Projection Image
Multi Projection Image

Links

Publication

Lothar Schlesier, Eastern Perspective - Multi-Projection-Images, Bachelor Thesis (Studienarbeit), Otto-von-Guericke-University of Magdeburg, Germany, 2004. (PDF, 63 pages, 2.52 MB) (BibTex)

Early Student Projects

CAGD

Bézier Ray
Bézier Ray

For the Computer Aided Geometric Design class I wrote a program to render different kinds of curves (Bézier, splines, and rational curves). Control points for the curves can be set and moved. The screenshot on the righthand side shows a ray created from a Bézier curve.

University Calendar

Timetable for a room
Timetable for a room
Map Interface
Map Interface

The goal of the software project webbased class- and room schedules was to implement an online university calendar using XML and XSL(T) on a COCOON server. Rainer Habrecht and I created a concept for the underlying database.
With Jana Zeihe I implemented the interface to access timetables for a specific room. To select a building we used an image map (see first screenshot) -- maps can be great visualizations/interfaces.

Programming Contest - Duke Contest

Duke 3D
Duke 3D
Duke 2D
Duke 2D

In 1998 a programming contest had been introduced in the context of the lecture Algorithms and Datastructures. The goal of the contest is, to write a program that efficently navigates a hamster through a labyrinth. In this labyrinth grains of maize are placed, which the hamster needs to collect and bring them to his den.
In 1999/2000 the hamster had been replaced by the duke the mascot of Java -- as Java had been the programming language taught in the class -- and the grains of maize became coffee beans. Together with Rainer Habrecht I helped implementing the contest's environment and created a 3D visualization using Java3D for the contest presentation (see screenshots below). We also introduced one way and two way beamers to have multiple levels in one labyrinth and add another level of complexity.

Register Machine

One of my first programs that I haven written in Java, was a register machine applet for an assignement for the lecture Algorithms and Datastructures. I did this assignment in colaboration with Rainer Habrecht. For nostalgic reasons, here is the link to our register machine page (in German only).

last modified: 2007-11-28 22:44:02