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*                          Einladung
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*                     Informatik-Oberseminar
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Zeit:  Montag, 15. Juli 2019, 16.00 Uhr
Ort:   Seminarraum 001, IT Center, Kopernikusstr. 6

Referent: Dipl.-Inform. Sebastian Pick

Thema: Interactive Data Annotation for Virtual Reality Applications

Abstract:

Virtual Reality (VR) offers the unique possibility to explore data sets in a highly immersive
and interactive fashion. A key aspect of this exploration process is the acquisition
of insights and findings concerning the involved data. In this context, it becomes the
task of so-called annotation systems to enable users to preserve said findings and review
them at a later time. Even though the design of VR-based annotation systems has been
a research topic for many years, crucial challenges remain unresolved. Many interaction
solutions focus on isolated issues and are rather limited in scope. Additionally, they
usually forgo holistic workflow designs that are vital for covering all relevant annotation
operations in a consistent fashion. Similarly, available annotation presentation techniques
are usually inappropriate for use within immersive virtual environments (IVEs)
or they perform sub-optimally. Lastly, the design of annotation systems is usually further
complicated if they are to be reused in context of other usage scenarios that impose
a different and varying set of requirements on them.

In this thesis, I set out to address the aforementioned issues. To this end, I present an
annotation framework that was specifically designed to be configurable and extensible in
accordance to the changing requirements of different application scenarios. It is grounded
in a specialized data model that facilitates the integration not only of required data types,
which are used to describe annotations, but also techniques to capture and present them.
I employ this model to develop a flexible solution to the design of holistic interaction
workflows. My design approach covers all essential operations, including the creation,
modication, and review of arbitrary types of annotations from within IVEs. To provide
a set of ready-to-use interaction techniques to acquire annotation contents, I identify the
most relevant data types and devise appropriate interaction concepts. Similarly, I present
a generalized two-tier presentation strategy that facilitates the access to and review of
arbitrary annotation contents. While the tier one representation provides basic access
to a selection of contents in a customizable form, the tier two representation allows for
access to all contents in a generalized manner. I furthermore introduce a novel automated
annotation layout approach that prevents occlusions of and by annotations to maintain
visual access to them and the original data. In order to determine the viability of my
approaches, I cover a series of technical analyses and user studies. They are rounded
off by a presentation of concrete application examples that utilize varying subsets of
techniques to demonstrate the usefulness and flexibility of my framework.

Es laden ein: die Dozentinnen und Dozenten der Informatik