CHI 2011 Review

| Olaf Schroth

First, I would like to apologize for the lack of recent posts under the LVIZ blog, but I and other contributors were traveling a lot, visiting various conferences and had report deadlines to match. In return, I will post several conference reviews over the next weeks with the biggest conference still to come in August: SIGGRAPH 2011 in Vancouver! The conference season started with the most important conference on human-computer interaction; CHI from May 7-12 at the new Vancouver conference center. CHI was far too large that I could address all session here. Instead I will focus on the sustainability workshop and the two sustainability sessions that were part of this year’s CHI.

The sustainability workshop at CHI was organized by Leo Bonanni (MIT Media Lab, USA), Daniela Busse (Sap Labs (Palo Alto), USA), John C Thomas (IBM TJ Watson Research Center, USA), Eli Blevis (Indiana University, Bloomington, USA), Marko Turpeinen (HIIT, Finland), and Nuno Jardim Nunes (Univ of Madeira, Portugal). Every participant had prepared position papers which were first presented and discussed. During the second half of the one-day workshop, IBM researcher John C. Thomas, who is also involved in IBM Smart City, presented the pattern language approach (cf. Christopher Alexander’s pattern language) as a method to grasp the fuzzy categories of sustainability. The unconventional approach produced an impressive variety of sustainability patterns. Co-organizers Leo Bonanni and Marko Turpeinen also announced a Green Hackathon in Stockholm on September 30, 2011. Interviews with some of the workshop participants are also covered by the Sustainable Lens blog from Australia which is presenting sustainability issues as online radio shows.

On Wednesday, two sustainability sessions took place. The first session started of with a presentation by Conor Linehan from the Lincoln Social Computing Research Centre on Guidelines for Designing Educational Games. Linehan referred the evaluation of behavioral change through educational computer games to the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) approach in psychology. The presentation was awarded and provided very valuable approaches for the evaluation of computer tools with an educational goal. The majority of the following presentations addressed the change of individual behavior through the visualization of individual consumption patterns, e.g., energy or water consumption. Most presentations were very nicely designed but from my point of view, some lacked from oversimplified conceptualizations of individual behavior change through more information. In the case of BeeParking, car use as an unsustainable behavior was even made more convenient through a smart parking system. In contrast, I was more impressed by the work of Philips Research in the Netherlands, who presented a game that is supposed to raise family awareness and change behavior about electricity use (download the paper here) and by James Pierce investigation of reacquisition and dispossession practices around second-hand objects (download the paper here).

It is good to hear that sustainability has its own SIG at CHI and it was even proposed to propose a sustainability track on its own which might lead to a higher number of sustainability papers at CHI. Either way, it is great to see that sustainability is also a topic inside the human-computer interaction community and I am sure that there is more to come.

Strengths and weaknesses of landscape visualisation

| Olaf Schroth

I would like to draw your attention to a paper hot off the press that I am currently reading:

Identifying strengths and weaknesses of landscape visualisation for effective communication of future alternatives

Original Research Article
Landscape and Urban Planning, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 3 February 2011
Christopher J. Pettit, Christopher M. Raymond, Brett A. Bryan, Hayden Lewis

Research highlights

► Results from our end user evaluation suggest that visualisation tools have an important role in raising knowledge and awareness of future landscape scenarios. ► Landscape visualisation is valuable as an environmental planning and investment tool in terms of guiding priority investment and encouraging a more strategic rather than reactive approach. ► Landscape visualisation needs to be further embedded into the decision-making process to quantify its impact to environmental planning. ► Future landscape modelling and visualisation projects need to consider resourcing a dedicated community engagement capability.

Street Slide – Street View a la Microsoft

| Philip Paar

Digital Urban highlights a Microsoft SIGGRAPH paper and patent that present an advanced Street View like technology, which combines the immersive nature of 360° Panoramas with the overview provided by multiperspective strip panoramas. The video also demonstrates the almost seamless transition between the panoramas.

Call for Papers for the AGIT Symposium July 6-8, 2011 in Salzburg

| Olaf Schroth

The AGIT symposium (www.agit.at) presents about 200 presentations, discussions and workshops about geoinformation and related disciplines in the German-speaking area. Paper abstracts can be submitted until February 1, 2011; other submissions (product presentation, forum and workshops) will close February 21, 2011.

Themes:

  • Nature and landscape, climate and hydrology
  • HealthGIS
  • Sustainability in energy, water and spatial planning
  • Mobility
  • eGovernment
  • GeoMES: Security and catastrophy management
  • Geoinformation in infrastructure and facility management

Methods and technologies:

  • 3D-worlds and cartographic communication
  • Surveying, remote sensing and computer graphics
  • Mobile geoinformation and location based services
  • Dynamic modelling and simulation
  • INSPIRE: Geoinfrastructure and georeferencing services
  • Open geodate and OpenSource GI-software
  • Real Time Forum: Best Practice

Play the CityOne Game

| Philip Paar

IBM has launched CityOne, a serious game that aims to raise awareness, and help address some of the challenges and solutions for building a smarter city.

Mangroves of Mexico as Google Earth Outreach example for GE6 in cooperation with CONABIO

| Olaf Schroth

Three weeks ago, Google had launched its new version 6 of Google Earth parallel to the Cancun conference, where Google Earth Outreach participated as well. Now, Google Earth Outreach together with the Mexican National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity CONABIO launched the first outreach project taking advantage of the newly implemented tree representations (download the kmz into GE here). The trees still look a bit sketchy in comparison to other products but the visualization seems to be based on credible and sophisticated vegetation data.

Source: Google Earth Outreach

CityEngine Vue

| Olaf Schroth

This blog has already reported about the landscape renderer Vue and about CityEngine, a tool by Swiss company Procedural Inc. that allows creating 3d city models from scratch. Now, there is a new product marrying both, CityEngine Vue.

Almost unnoticed: Bing Maps 3D is dead

| Philip Paar

I was trying to re-visit the SpeedTree trees in Bing Maps 3D, but strangely the 3D interface of Bing Maps has disappeared. Then I found  this announcement on Bing Maps Blog.

Many comments express their concerns about the discontinuation of the 3D control, SDK licensees seemed totally surprised that 3D control is discontinued without a replacement or replacement announcement. Has Mircosoft given up to compete with Google Earth?

3D Trees in GE, it is a feature not a bug

| Philip Paar

If you can’t see the tree layer and your Google Earth user interface is other than English, change the language to US English and the Trees show up in the 3D buildings options http://earth.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=22358&topic=22360&answer=148181

Review of GE 3D Trees

| Philip Paar
I have been expecting 3D trees in Google Earth for years. I am just surprised that the 3D trees look relatively ugly (1990ies computer graphics). But it is indeed a step towards landscape visualization.
In fall 2008, Microsoft’s globe formally known as “Virtual Earth” got some nicer 3D trees from SpeedTree. But they only included a few cities such as parts of Miami.
Paar and Clasen (2007) describe a landscape scenery globe focusing on complex 3D vegetation cover, including shrub, grass and herb layers.
Currently, in GE 6, there are some misplaced trees (not  there in reality or placed in the middle of roads). I am wondering when Google will add tools to SketchUp and GE  for planting trees. Then I guess users will ask how to distribute larger areas of plants. This is was ArcGIS users and Biosphere3D users have always been asking us.