Wissenschaftler und Studierende arbeiten gemeinsam an praxisnahen Lösungen

Trockenheit und extrem hohe Temperaturen hatten dieses Jahr ganz Europa fest im Griff. Im Sommer 2022 zerstörten Feuer mehr europäischen Wald – insgesamt 660.000 Hektar – als je in einem Sommer seit Beginn der Aufzeichnungen. Am schlimmsten betroffen war in diesem Jahr Spanien mit 245.000 Hektar verbrannter Fläche – es folgen Rumänien mit 150.000 und Portugal mit 75.000 Hektar. In Deutschland vernichteten Großbrände bis November mehr als 4.300 Hektar Waldfläche, ein Vielfaches von dem, was zwischen 2006 und 2021 im Durchschnitt pro Jahr verbrannt ist. Ein wichtiges Thema, mit dem sich die Arbeitsgruppe von Prof. Dr. Lars Linsen vom Institut für Informatik der WWU im Rahmen eines Projektseminars beschäftigte. Seine Studierenden durften an einem internationalen wissenschaftlichen Wettbewerb mitwirken und wurden frühzeitig an aktuelle Forschungsfragen herangeführt. Und das mit großem Erfolg: Das Team erzielte den ersten Platz.

Der „SciVis Contest“ beschäftigt sich mit Datenanalyseproblemen aus den Naturwissenschaften oder der Medizin. Der Wettbewerb ruft jedes Jahr Forschungsteams aus der ganzen Welt zum Mitmachen auf. Die diesjährige Aufgabe bestand in der visuellen Analyse von Waldbrandsimulationen. „Gemeinsam mit Doktoranden und Studierenden entwickelten wir über mehrere Monate interaktive visuelle Methoden, um ein Problem zu lösen und praxisnahe Hilfestellungen für die Feuerwehr und Behörden abzuleiten“, erklärt Lars Linsen, der seit 2017 die Arbeitsgruppe „Visualization and Graphics“ leitet.

Für die Untersuchung, wie Waldbrände sich ausbreiten, ist das Verständnis der Wechselwirkungen verschiedener physikalischer und chemischer Phänomene entscheidend. Der Untergrund und die Vegetation der Umgebung, die Windrichtung oder die Topografie spielen hierbei eine bedeutende Rolle. „Unsere Arbeit konzentrierte sich auf die Analyse der Strömungseigenschaften, insbesondere der Windturbulenzen“, erläutert Lars Linsen das Vorgehen. „Das trägt dazu bei, den Einfluss der Geländeform auf die Brandausbreitung zu verstehen.“ Das Team erstellte mehrere Übersichtsgrafiken, die unter anderem die Ausbreitung des Feuers über die Zeit zeigen und dadurch einen Vergleich zwischen verschiedenen Simulationsläufen ermöglichen. So fanden die Studierenden heraus, dass die seitliche Ausbreitung des Feuers bei steileren Bergen größer ist als bei flacheren Hängen. Ein weiteres Ergebnis der Analyse war die Rolle von Bergkuppen: Wenn sich das Feuer in Windrichtung vor der Bergkuppe entzündet hat, breitet es sich demzufolge über die Bergkuppe hinweg aus. Das sei nicht der Fall, wenn sich das Feuer hinter einer Bergkuppe entzündet. Diese Erkenntnisse sollen der Feuerwehr und den zuständigen Behörden helfen, Gefahren und die künftige Ausbreitung von Waldbränden besser einzuschätzen.

Die Doktorandin Marina Evers präsentierte die Ergebnisse Ende Oktober auf der internationalen Konferenz IEEE VIS in Oklahoma City in den USA. Sie nahm stellvertretend für das Team den ersten Preis entgegen. „An etwas zu arbeiten, das sowohl Menschen als auch die Natur schützen kann, hat uns alle sehr motiviert. Dass unsere Arbeit nun zum Gewinnerprojekt auserkoren wurde, freut uns natürlich besonders“, betont sie. Nach 2018, als es um eine Analyse von Asteroideneinschlägen in der Tiefsee ging, und 2020 zum Thema Meeresströmungen im Roten Meer hat das Team um Lars Linsen nun zum dritten Mal beim „SciVis Contest“ den ersten Platz erreicht.

Autorin: Kathrin Kottke

Dieser Artikel stammt aus der Unizeitung wissen|leben Nr. 8, 21. Dezember 2022: Link

Prof. Lars Linsen presented a joint conference paper with Karl Heimes and Marina Evers, as well as Tim Gerrits (RWTH Aachen) and Sandeep Gyawali, David Sinden and Tobias Preusser (Fraunhofer MEVIS, Bremen) on "Studying the effect of tissue properties on radiofrequency ablation by visual simulation ensemble analysis" (Link) at the 12th Eurographics workshop on Visual Computing in Biology and Medicine (VCBM 2022), which took place in Vienna, Austria, on September 22-23, 2022. The paper received an Honorable Mention Full Paper Award.

Marina Evers and Prof. Lars Linsen published a paper on Multi-dimensional parameter-space partitioning of spatio-temporal simulation ensembles (Link) in the Elsevier journal on Computers & Graphics (Link).

We have acquired a new DFG-funded project (project number: 468824876, LI 1530/28-1) on "Visual Analysis of Hemodynamics Simulations for Increased Spatio-temporal PC-MRI Resolution". This project is a collaboration with the group of Dr. Mathias Krause (KIT) and Prof. Dr. Verena Hörr (University of Bonn and WWU) and will run for 3 years.

Simon Leistikow presented a joint conference paper with Prof. Lars Linsen as well as Ali Nahardani and Verana Hörr (both from the University of Jena) on Interactive Visual Similarity Analysis of Measured and Simulated Multi-field Tubular Flow Ensembles at the 10th Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine (VCBM 2020), held virtually on September 28 - October 1, 2020.

Quynh Quang Ngo presented a joint conference paper with Prof. Lars Linsen on Interactive Generation of 1D Embeddings from 2D Multi-dimensional Data Projections at the 25th International Symposium on Vision, Modeling, and Visualization (VMV 2020), held virtually on September 28 - October 1, 2020.

Quynh Quang Ngo successfully defended his PhD thesis in Computer Science at the WWU under supervision of Prof. Lars Linsen on Visual Similarity Analysis for Dynamic Systems. Congratulations!

Muhammad Jawad successfully defended his PhD thesis in Computer Science at the WWU under supervision of Prof. Lars Linsen on Interactive Visual Analysis of Spectroscopy Imaging Data. Congratulations!

Ali Sheharyar successfully defended his PhD thesis in Computer Science at the WWU under supervision of Prof. Lars Linsen on Visual Analysis of Regional Myocardial Motion Data. Congratulations!

Dr. Vladimir Molchanov presented a joint conference paper with Prof. Lars Linsen on Smooth Map Deformation Using Integral Images at the 28. International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision 2020 (WSCG 2020), held virtually on June 19-21, 2020.

Bojan Kocev successfully defended his PhD thesis in Computer Science at Jacobs University under co-supervision of Prof. Lars Linsen on Modeling, Estimating, and Visualizing Spatial and Temporal Uncertainty for Image-guided Therapy. Congratulations!

José Matute successfully defended his PhD thesis in Computer Science at the WWU under supervision of Prof. Lars Linsen on Visual Analysis of Heterogeneous Medical Data for Cohort Studies. Congratulations! 

The German TV channel ARD broadcasted a history documentary on the robbery of children by the Nazis (German title: Kinderraub der Nazis - Die vergessenen Opfer). In the documentary, Prof. Linsen presented a visualization tool developed together with José Matute, which was applied to data acquired by a colleague from History Prof. Isabel Heinemann.

We would like to cordially welcome our new team assistant Katharina Sichma to our group. We are very happy that she is joining us.

Our team assistant Evelyn Egelkamp retires today. We are very sorry to lose her, but, at the same time, are very grateful that she has been with us and supported our group for more than 3 years. In fact, Evelyn Egelkamp supported the Institute of Computer Science for several decades as a team assistant. We appreciate all the dedication and skills she put into her work. We wish Evelyn Egelkamp a pleasant and joyful retirement. It is well deserved.

Quanh Quang Ngo presented a joint conference paper with Stefan Boshe-Plois and Prof. Lars Linsen as well as Prof. Peter Albers (University of Heidelberg) on Visual Analysis of Billiard Dynamics Simulation Ensembles at the International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications (IVAPP 2020), held in Valetta, Malta, on February 27-29, 2020.

Maria Herick presented a joint conference paper with Dr. Vladimir Molchanov and Prof. Lars Linsen on Temporally Coherent Topological Landscapes for Time-varying Scalar Fields at the International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications (IVAPP 2020), held in Valetta, Malta, on February 27-29, 2020.

Prof. Linsen was re-elected by the general assembly to serve a second two-year period in the management board of the  Center for Digital Humanties (CDH) of the WWU Münster. Subsequently, he was also re-elected by the management board to serve as its deputy speaker of the.

A new version of the visualization framework and visualization tool Voreen was released (Version 5.1.0) supported by the VISIX group.

Prof. Linsen was admitted as member of the Cells in Motion (CIM) Interfaculty Centre.

Prof. Linsen has been invited to contribute as a panelist to the 7th Viadrina Compliance Congress on November 13-14, 2019, in Berlin. The topic of the panel was AI-Compliance, i.e., how Artificial Intelligence may help or hinder the Compliance process.

Prof. Lars Linsen presented a paper on Uncertainty Visualization for Interactive Assessment of Stenotic Regions in Vascular Structures at the 9th Eurographics workshop on Visual Computing in Biology and Medicine (VCBM 2019), which took place September 4-6, 2019, in Brno, Czech Republic. This was an invirted paper talk of a Computers & Graphics publication. Co-authors are Dr. Gordan Ristovski, José Matute, Prof. Horst Hahn (Fraunhofer MEVIS), Dr. Thomas Wehrum (University Hospital Freiburg), and Prof. Andreas Harloff (University Hospital Freiburg).

Prof. Lars Linsen served as one of the three paper chairs of the 9th Eurographics workshop on Visual Computing in Biology and Medicine (VCBM 2019), which took place September 4-6, 2019, in Brno, Czech Republic. He also chaired a session and served as a judge in the image contest.

Muhammad Jawad, Marina Evers, Alexander Gerwing, Maria Herick, Daniel Seibert, and Prof. Lars Linsen published a paper on A Visual Analytics Approach for Comparing Cohorts in Single-Voxel Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Data in the edited Springer book on Biomedical Visualization (Vol. 2) within the series on Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology with Prof. Patricia Ohrmann from the Department of Psychiatry and Psychiotherapy of the University of Münster as well as Dr. Jochen Bauer and Dr. Harald Kugel from Institute of Clinical Radiology of the University Hospital Münster.

Ali Sheharyar and Prof. Lars Linsen published a paper on Visual analysis of regional myocardial motion anomalies in longitudinal studies in the Elsevier journal on Computers & Graphics (CAG) with Prof. Michael Markl and further members of the Northwetsern University in Chicago, USA, as well as Prof. Othmane Bouhali from the Texas A&M University, Qatar.

Prof. Linsen published a paper on Efficient Error-bounded Curvature Optimization for Smooth Machining Paths together with Evgenia Selinger in the Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting (JVRB).

The German Research Council (DFG) funds a second period of two additional years for our project on Uncertainty in Medical Visualization: Bringing Imaging and Simulation Uncertainty Together under project number LI 1530/19-2 in collaboration with Prof. Tobias Preusser and Prof. Horst K. Hahn from Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany.

Marina Evers joined VISIX as teaching and research associate working on topics in the  Visual Analysis of Multi-run Multi-field Simulation Data. We welcome Marina to our group.

Prof. Lars Linsen presented a CGF paper published with Dr. Alexey Fofonov on Projected Field Similarity for Comparative Visualization of Multi-run Multi-field Time-varying Spatial Data at the EuroVis 2019 conference held June 3-7, 2019, in Porto, Portugal.

Prof. Lars Linsen presented a joint paper with Eike Gebauer on Uni- and Multi-modal Uncertainty Visualization in 2D Scalar Field Ensembles at this year's EuroVis workshop on TrustVis, held on June 3, 2019, in Porto, Portugal.

Sagad Hamid presented a joint paper with Adrian Derstroff, Quynh Quang Ngo, and Prof. Lars Linsen as well as Sören Klemm and Prof. Xiaoyi Jiang from the Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis group at the University of Münster on Visual Ensemble Analysis to Study the Influence of Hyper-parameters on Training Deep Neural Networks at the EuroVis workshop on Machine Learning Methods in Visualisation for Big Data (MLVis).

José Matute and Prof. Lars Linsen published a paper on Hinted Star Coordinates for Mixed Data in the journal Computer Graphics Forum (CGF).

Prof. Linsen published a paper on An interactive visual analysis tool for investigating teleconnections in climate simulations in the Springer journal on Environmental Earth Sciences (EES) with Anatoliy Antonov (Jacobs University), Prof. Gerrit Lohmann (AWI Bremerhaven), Dr. Monica Ionita (AWI Bremerhaven), and Prof. Mihai Dima (University of Bucharest).

Simon Leistikow, Karim Huesmann, Dr. Alexey Fofonov, and Prof. Lars Linsen published a paper on Aggregated Ensemble Views for Deep Water Asteroid Impacts Simulations in the IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CG&A) journal.

Tim Gerrits joined VISIX as a teaching and research associate working on topics in Vector Field Ensemble Visualization. We welcome Tim to our group.

Dr. Dimitar Valkov presented a joint paper with Prof. Lars Linsen on Vibro-tactile Feedback for Real-world Awareness in Immersive Virtual Environments at the IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR), held in on March 23-27, 2019, in Osaka, Japan. Dr. Dimitar Valkov presented another joint paper with Andreas Mantler and Prof. Lars Linsen on Haptic Prop: A Tangible Prop for Semi-passive Haptic Interaction within the IEEE VR Workshop on Novel Input Devices and Interaction Techniques (NIDIT).

José Matute presented a joint paper with Marcel Fischer and Prof. Lars Linsen as well as Prof. Alexandru Telea (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) on Scatterplot Summarization by Constructing Fast and Robust Principal Graphs from Skeletons at the IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium (PacificVis), held April 23-26, 2019, in Bangkok, Thailand.

Dr. Gordan Ristovski and Prof. Lars Linsen published a joint paper with Nicole Garbers, Prof. Horst K. Hahn, and Prof. Tobias Preusser from Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany, on Uncertainty-aware visual analysis of radiofrequency ablation simulations in the Elsevier journal on Computers & Graphics (CAG).

Prof. Lars Linsen has been selected to serve on the scientific advisory council of the German Institute of Compliance (DICO).

Bojan Kocev and Prof. Lars Linsen published a paper on Uncertainty-aware asynchronous scattered motion interpolation using Gaussian process regression in the Elsevier journal on Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics (CMIG) with Prof. Horst K. Hahn (Jacobs University and Fraunhofer MEVIS, Bremen, Germany), Prof. William M. Wells (Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, USA), and Prof. Ron Kikinis (University of Bremen and Fraunhofer MEVIS, Bremen, Germany).

Muhammad Jawad presented a joint conference paper with Dr. Vladimir Molchanov and Prof. Lars Linsen on Coordinated Image- and Feature-space Visualization for Interactive Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Imaging Data Analysis at the International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications (IVAPP 2019), held in Prague, Czwch Republic, on Ferbuary 25-27, 2019.

Marina Evers presented a joint conference paper with Prof. Lars Linsen on Uncertainty-aware Prediction in Spatio-temporal Simulation Ensemble Visualizations at the International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications (IVAPP 2019), held in Prague, Czwch Republic, on Ferbuary 25-27, 2019.

Our paper on Testing occlusal performance by using chewing simulation with virtually designed substrate by Dr. Andra Pascale and Prof Lars Linsen in collaboration with Dr. Sebastian Ruge and Prof. Bernd Kordaß from the University of Greifswald, Germany, and Dr. Steffen Hauth from Dentsply Sirona, Germany,  has now also been translated to Japanese and published in the Quintessence Journal of Dental Technology.

At IEEE VIS 2018, Simon Leistikow, Karim Huesmann, and Prof. Lars Linsen (left to right) received the award for the winning entry of the SciVis contest. Dr. Alexey Fofonov was also co-author.

This year the VISIX group had record attendance at the IEEE VIS 2018 conference in Berlin, Germany, with 9 participants. For the picture, former group member Prof. Paul Rosenthal joined, as well.