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Abstract: Until now, interactive visualization techniques are often restricted to traditional input and output devices, which are typically limited to one (larger) screen operated by mouse and keyboard interaction. To find more efficient and user-friendly ways of exploring large information spaces, the User Interface & Software Engineering group of the University of Magdeburg (Germany) is conducting research on natural interaction in multiple-display environments. Thereby, we focus on interactive surfaces, in particular tabletops and mobile devices, which are operated by touch, gesture, pen or other types of tangible interaction. The talk will outline two avenues of current research. One is the promising combination of pen and multi-touch gestures for graph editing on interactive displays. Using the example of node-link diagrams, it will be explained how user-elicited gesture sets for editing diagrams, multitouch gestures for exploring and layouting them and off-screen visualizations for solving the focus and context problem can be used to tackle typical challenges. As a second project, tangible magic lenses will be introduced in the talk. These are optically tracked, lightweight, passive displays that provide elegant three-dimensional exploration of rich datasets. This can either be volumetric, layered, zoomable, or temporal information spaces, which are mapped onto the physical volume above a tabletop. By moving one or multiple hand-held magic lenses through the volume, corresponding data is displayed, thus serving as a window into virtuality. Various interaction techniques are explained, which especially utilize the lens’ height in a novel way and provide a rich vocabulary of physical gestures. These projects are examples of combining modern techniques from the field of human-computer interaction with existing visualization approaches.

Bio: Raimund Dachselt is an assistant professor (Juniorprofessor) at the University of Magdeburg in Germany, where he heads the User Interface & Software Engineering group. After studying computer science with a focus on human-computer interaction and information visualization in Dresden and Glasgow, he joined the Multimedia Technology Group at Dresden University of Technology, where he received his PhD in 2004. Within his doctoral thesis he developed a component-based architecture and 3D widgets for interactive three-dimensional applications (www.contigra.com). As a post-doctoral researcher and academic assistant in Dresden he conducted research on zoomable user interfaces and faceted browsing for personal information and media management. In 2007 Raimund Dachselt started building his own research group at the University of Magdeburg. Thereby, the research focus is on natural user interfaces of the future. This includes the development of visualization and interaction techniques for a seamless interaction in environments with multiple displays and devices. Several interaction modalities are currently investigated, among them multitouch and pen interaction as well as tangible and gaze-based interaction. Dr. Dachselt is a member of the IEEE Computer Society, ACM SIGCHI and SIGMM. He has co-organized several international workshops on the design and development of virtual environments, mixed reality user interfaces, realtime interactive systems as well as on mobile, ubiquitous projection. He has extensively served as a program committee member, organizer and reviewer of international conferences and workshops. Starting from April 2011, he will be appointed full professor at the Otto-von-Guericke-University of Magdeburg.