Big See

This page is for the SHARCNET and TAPoR text visualization project. Note that it is a work in progress as this is an ongoing project.

The Big See is an experiment in high performance text visualization. We are looking at how a text or corpus of texts could be represented if processing and the resolution of the display were not an issue. Most text visualizations, like word clouds and distribution graphs, are designed for the personal computer screen. In the Big See we anticipate wall displays with 3d views and the processing to manipulate large amounts of data like all the content words of a novel. The Big See proposes one visual idea of what such a high performance visualization would look like as it is generated and once it is manipulable.

Project Goals

This project imagines possible paradigms for the visual representation of a text that could scale up to very high resolution displays (data walls), 3D displays, and animated displays.

• To explore the potential for visualization and HPC in the analysis of texts.
• To explore the potential for high-resolution text visualizations. What can we do if we have very high resolutions displays - how would an interactive text visualization be different in this case?
• To explore the use of animation in text visualization.

Participants

Geoffrey Rockwell is a Professor of Philosophy and Humanities Computing at the University of Alberta.

Stéfan Sinclair is an Associate Professor in Communication Studies and Multimedia at McMaster.

Garry Wong is a Research Assistant and graduate student in Humanities Computing at the University of Alberta.

Weiguang Guan is a Research Engineer in Research and High Performance Computing Support.

Lian Yan is the TAPoR Programmer Analyst.

Hugh Couchman is the Scientific Director of SHARCNET.

Collocation Graphs in 3D Space

The idea is to build on the TAPoRware Visual Collocator by visualizing the collocations between all high frequency words.

Beta 3 - Graphical User Interface Controls

Version Beta 3 (click for images) has an interface so users can change settings for the visualization and then rerun it.

Beta 2 - Working Animation

Version Beta 2 (click for images) handles a small text and animates the building of a 3D model. You can see a Quicktime (MP4) of version b 2.

Research

This section is for information about our research.

• Literature Review includes information about or review of research literature.
• Environmental Scan (Private) includes information about related projects. You have to sign in to see these.
• Principles of LSiDs is a starting set of design principles.

Technologies

This section discusses the high performance visualization technologies that we are experimenting with.

• SVA (Scalable Visualization Array)
• 3D Display
• 3D Projector

Meeting Notes

May 29, 2009 meeting at U of A with Garry Wong and GR.

April 11, 2008 meeting.

Nov. 30, 2007 meeting.

Oct. 26, 2007 meeting.

August 31st, 2007 meeting.

Links

Current prototype: http://tada.mcmaster.ca/wikita/pub/Main/BigSee/bigsee.exe

SHARCNET

TAPoR Project and TAPoR Portal

Thanks

Thanks to TAPoR and SHARCNET for support. Thanks to Wendell Piez for the e-text of Frankenstein that we are using. Thanks to all the people who have provided commentary.

-- GeoffreyRockwell - 31 Aug 2007

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