@phdthesis{Kulik,
  author    = {Kulik, Alexander},
  title     = {User Interfaces for Cooperation},
  doi       = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.2720},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20161202-27207},
  school      = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar},
  pages     = {261},
  abstract  = {This thesis suggests cooperation as a design paradigm for human-computer interaction. The basic idea is that the synergistic co-operation of interfaces through concurrent user activities enables increased interaction fluency and expressiveness. This applies to bimanual interaction and multi-finger input, e.g., touch typing, as well as the collaboration of multiple users. Cooperative user interfaces offer more interaction flexibility and expressivity for single and multiple users. Part I of this thesis analyzes the state of the art in user interface design. It explores limitations of common approaches and reveals the crucial role of cooperative action in several established user interfaces and research prototypes. A review of related research in psychology and human-computer interaction offers insights to the cognitive, behavioral, and ergonomic foundations of cooperative user interfaces. Moreover, this thesis suggests a broad applicability of generic cooperation patterns and contributes three high-level design principles. Part II presents three experiments towards cooperative user interfaces in detail. A study on desktop-based 3D input devices, explores fundamental benefits of cooperative bimanual input and the impact of interface design on bimanual cooperative behavior. A novel interaction technique for multitouch devices is presented that follows the paradigm of cooperative user interfaces and demonstrates advantages over the status quo. Finally, this thesis introduces a fundamentally new display technology that provides up to six users with their individual perspectives of a shared 3D environment. The system creates new possibilities for the cooperative interaction of multiple users. Part III of this thesis builds on the research results described in Part II, in particular, the multi-user 3D display system. A series of case studies in the field of collaborative virtual reality provides exemplary evidence for the relevance and applicability of the suggested design principles.},
  subject      = {Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Moehring,
  author    = {Moehring, Mathias},
  title     = {Realistic Interaction with Virtual Objects within Arm's Reach},
  doi       = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.1859},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20130301-18592},
  school      = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar},
  pages     = {124},
  abstract  = {The automotive industry requires realistic virtual reality applications more than other domains to increase the efficiency of product development. Currently, the visual quality of virtual invironments resembles reality, but interaction within these environments is usually far from what is known in everyday life. Several realistic research approaches exist, however they are still not all-encompassing enough to be usable in industrial processes. This thesis realizes lifelike direct multi-hand and multi-finger interaction with arbitrary objects, and proposes algorithmic and technical improvements that also approach lifelike usability. In addition, the thesis proposes methods to measure the effectiveness and usability of such interaction techniques as well as discusses different types of grasping feedback that support the user during interaction. Realistic and reliable interaction is reached through the combination of robust grasping heuristics and plausible pseudophysical object reactions. The easy-to-compute grasping rules use the objects' surface normals, and mimic human grasping behavior. The novel concept of Normal Proxies increases grasping stability and diminishes challenges induced by adverse normals. The intricate act of picking-up thin and tiny objects remains challenging for some users. These cases are further supported by the consideration of finger pinches, which are measured with a specialized finger tracking device. With regard to typical object constraints, realistic object motion is geometrically calculated as a plausible reaction on user input. The resulting direct finger-based interaction technique enables realistic and intuitive manipulation of arbitrary objects. The thesis proposes two methods that prove and compare effectiveness and usability. An expert review indicates that experienced users quickly familiarize themselves with the technique. A quantitative and qualitative user study shows that direct finger-based interaction is preferred over indirect interaction in the context of functional car assessments. While controller-based interaction is more robust, the direct finger-based interaction provides greater realism, and becomes nearly as reliable when the pinch-sensitive mechanism is used. At present, the haptic channel is not used in industrial virtual reality applications. That is why it can be used for grasping feedback which improves the users' understanding of the grasping situation. This thesis realizes a novel pressure-based tactile feedback at the fingertips. As an alternative, vibro-tactile feedback at the same location is realized as well as visual feedback by the coloring of grasp-involved finger segments. The feedback approaches are also compared within the user study, which reveals that grasping feedback is a requirement to judge grasp status and that tactile feedback improves interaction independent of the used display system. The considerably stronger vibrational tactile feedback can quickly become annoying during interaction. The interaction improvements and hardware enhancements make it possible to interact with virtual objects in a realistic and reliable manner. By addressing realism and reliability, this thesis paves the way for the virtual evaluation of human-object interaction, which is necessary for a broader application of virtual environments in the automotive industry and other domains.},
  subject      = {Virtuelle Realit{\"a}t},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Springer2008,
  author    = {Springer, Jan P.},
  title     = {Multi-Frame Rate Rendering},
  doi       = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.1371},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20081127-14395},
  school      = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar},
  year      = {2008},
  abstract  = {Multi-frame rate rendering is a parallel rendering technique that renders interactive parts of a scene on one graphics card while the rest of the scene is rendered asynchronously on a second graphics card. The resulting color and depth images of both render processes are composited, by optical superposition or digital composition, and displayed. The results of a user study confirm that multi-frame rate rendering can significantly improve the interaction performance. Multi-frame rate rendering is naturally implemented on a graphics cluster. With the recent availability of multiple graphics cards in standalone systems the method can also be implemented on a single computer system where memory bandwidth is much higher compared to off-the-shelf networking technology. This decreases overall latency and further improves interactivity. Multi-frame rate rendering was also investigated on a single graphics processor by interleaving the rendering streams for the interactive elements and the rest of the scene. This approach enables the use of multi-frame rate rendering on low-end graphics systems such as laptops, mobile phones, and PDAs. Advanced multi-frame rate rendering techniques reduce the limitations of the basic approach. The interactive manipulation of light sources and their parameters affects the entire scene. A multi-GPU deferred shading method is presented that splits the rendering task into a rasterization and lighting pass and assigns the passes to the appropriate image generators such that light manipulations at high frame rates become possible. A parallel volume rendering technique allows the manipulation of objects inside a translucent volume at high frame rates. This approach is useful for example in medical applications, where small probes need to be positioned inside a computed-tomography image. Due to the asynchronous nature of multi-frame rate rendering artifacts may occur during migration of objects from the slow to the fast graphics card, and vice versa. Proper state management allows to almost completely avoid these artifacts. Multi-frame rate rendering significantly improves the interactive manipulation of objects and lighting effects. This leads to a considerable increase of the size for 3D scenes that can be manipulated compared to conventional methods.},
  subject      = {Virtuelle Realit{\"a}t},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Beck,
  author    = {Beck, Stephan},
  title     = {Immersive Telepresence Systems and Technologies},
  doi       = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.3856},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20190218-38569},
  school      = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar},
  pages     = {149},
  abstract  = {Modern immersive telepresence systems enable people at different locations to meet in virtual environments using realistic three-dimensional representations of their bodies. For the realization of such a three-dimensional version of a video conferencing system, each user is continuously recorded in 3D. These 3D recordings are exchanged over the network between remote sites. At each site, the remote recordings of the users, referred to as 3D video avatars, are seamlessly integrated into a shared virtual scenery and displayed in stereoscopic 3D for each user from his or her perspective. This thesis reports on algorithmic and technical contributions to modern immersive telepresence systems and presents the design, implementation and evaluation of the first immersive group-to-group telepresence system in which each user is represented as realistic life-size 3D video avatar. The system enabled two remote user groups to meet and collaborate in a consistent shared virtual environment. The system relied on novel methods for the precise calibration and registration of color- and depth- sensors (RGBD) into the coordinate system of the application as well as an advanced distributed processing pipeline that reconstructs realistic 3D video avatars in real-time. During the course of this thesis, the calibration of 3D capturing systems was greatly improved. While the first development focused on precisely calibrating individual RGBD-sensors, the second stage presents a new method for calibrating and registering multiple color and depth sensors at a very high precision throughout a large 3D capturing volume. This method was further refined by a novel automatic optimization process that significantly speeds up the manual operation and yields similarly high accuracy. A core benefit of the new calibration method is its high runtime efficiency by directly mapping from raw depth sensor measurements into an application coordinate system and to the coordinates of its associated color sensor. As a result, the calibration method is an efficient solution in terms of precision and applicability in virtual reality and immersive telepresence applications. In addition to the core contributions, the results of two case studies which address 3D reconstruction and data streaming lead to the final conclusion of this thesis and to directions of future work in the rapidly advancing field of immersive telepresence research.},
  subject      = {Virtuelle Realit{\"a}t},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{KreskowskiRendleFroehlich,
  author    = {Kreskowski, Adrian and Rendle, Gareth and Fr{\"o}hlich, Bernd},
  title     = {Efficient Direct Isosurface Rasterization of Scalar Volumes},
  series = {Computer Graphics Forum},
  volume    = {2022},
  journal   = {Computer Graphics Forum},
  number    = {Volume 4, Issue 7},
  publisher = {Wiley Blackwell},
  address   = {Oxford},
  doi       = {10.1111/cgf.14670},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20230525-63835},
  pages     = {215 -- 226},
  abstract  = {In this paper we propose a novel and efficient rasterization-based approach for direct rendering of isosurfaces. Our method exploits the capabilities of task and mesh shader pipelines to identify subvolumes containing potentially visible isosurface geometry, and to efficiently extract primitives which are consumed on the fly by the rasterizer. As a result, our approach requires little preprocessing and negligible additional memory. Direct isosurface rasterization is competitive in terms of rendering performance when compared with ray-marching-based approaches, and significantly outperforms them for increasing resolution in most situations. Since our approach is entirely rasterization based, it affords straightforward integration into existing rendering pipelines, while allowing the use of modern graphics hardware features, such as multi-view stereo for efficient rendering of stereoscopic image pairs for geometry-bound applications. Direct isosurface rasterization is suitable for applications where isosurface geometry is highly variable, such as interactive analysis scenarios for static and dynamic data sets that require frequent isovalue adjustment.},
  subject      = {Rendering},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Schollmeyer,
  author    = {Schollmeyer, Andre},
  title     = {Efficient and High-Quality Rendering of Higher-Order Geometric Data Representations},
  doi       = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.3823},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20181120-38234},
  school      = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar},
  pages     = {143},
  abstract  = {Computer-Aided Design (CAD) bezeichnet den Entwurf industrieller Produkte mit Hilfe von virtuellen 3D Modellen. Ein CAD-Modell besteht aus parametrischen Kurven und Fl{\"a}chen, in den meisten F{\"a}llen non-uniform rational B-Splines (NURBS). Diese mathematische Beschreibung wird ebenfalls zur Analyse, Optimierung und Pr{\"a}sentation des Modells verwendet. In jeder dieser Entwicklungsphasen wird eine unterschiedliche visuelle Darstellung ben{\"o}tigt, um den entsprechenden Nutzern ein geeignetes Feedback zu geben. Designer bevorzugen beispielsweise illustrative oder realistische Darstellungen, Ingenieure ben{\"o}tigen eine verst{\"a}ndliche Visualisierung der Simulationsergebnisse, w{\"a}hrend eine immersive 3D Darstellung bei einer Benutzbarkeitsanalyse oder der Designauswahl hilfreich sein kann. Die interaktive Darstellung von NURBS-Modellen und -Simulationsdaten ist jedoch aufgrund des hohen Rechenaufwandes und der eingeschr{\"a}nkten Hardwareunterst{\"u}tzung eine große Herausforderung. Diese Arbeit stellt vier neuartige Verfahren vor, welche sich mit der interaktiven Darstellung von NURBS-Modellen und Simulationensdaten befassen. Die vorgestellten Algorithmen nutzen neue F{\"a}higkeiten aktueller Grafikkarten aus, um den Stand der Technik bez{\"u}glich Qualit{\"a}t, Effizienz und Darstellungsgeschwindigkeit zu verbessern. Zwei dieser Verfahren befassen sich mit der direkten Darstellung der parametrischen Beschreibung ohne Approximationen oder zeitaufw{\"a}ndige Vorberechnungen. Die dabei vorgestellten Datenstrukturen und Algorithmen erm{\"o}glichen die effiziente Unterteilung, Klassifizierung, Tessellierung und Darstellung getrimmter NURBS-Fl{\"a}chen und einen interaktiven Ray-Casting-Algorithmus f{\"u}r die Isofl{\"a}chenvisualisierung von NURBSbasierten isogeometrischen Analysen. Die weiteren zwei Verfahren beschreiben zum einen das vielseitige Konzept der programmierbaren Transparenz f{\"u}r illustrative und verst{\"a}ndliche Visualisierungen tiefenkomplexer CAD-Modelle und zum anderen eine neue hybride Methode zur Reprojektion halbtransparenter und undurchsichtiger Bildinformation f{\"u}r die Beschleunigung der Erzeugung von stereoskopischen Bildpaaren. Die beiden letztgenannten Ans{\"a}tze basieren auf rasterisierter Geometrie und sind somit ebenfalls f{\"u}r normale Dreiecksmodelle anwendbar, wodurch die Arbeiten auch einen wichtigen Beitrag in den Bereichen der Computergrafik und der virtuellen Realit{\"a}t darstellen. Die Auswertung der Arbeit wurde mit großen, realen NURBS-Datens{\"a}tzen durchgef{\"u}hrt. Die Resultate zeigen, dass die direkte Darstellung auf Grundlage der parametrischen Beschreibung mit interaktiven Bildwiederholraten und in subpixelgenauer Qualit{\"a}t m{\"o}glich ist. Die Einf{\"u}hrung programmierbarer Transparenz erm{\"o}glicht zudem die Umsetzung kollaborativer 3D Interaktionstechniken f{\"u}r die Exploration der Modelle in virtuellenUmgebungen sowie illustrative und verst{\"a}ndliche Visualisierungen tiefenkomplexer CAD-Modelle. Die Erzeugung stereoskopischer Bildpaare f{\"u}r die interaktive Visualisierung auf 3D Displays konnte beschleunigt werden. Diese messbare Verbesserung wurde zudem im Rahmen einer Nutzerstudie als wahrnehmbar und vorteilhaft befunden.},
  subject      = {Rendering},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Salzmann2010,
  author    = {Salzmann, Holger},
  title     = {Collaboration in Co-located Automotive Applications},
  doi       = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.1422},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20100712-15102},
  school      = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar},
  year      = {2010},
  abstract  = {Virtual reality systems offer substantial potential in supporting decision processes based purely on computer-based representations and simulations. The automotive industry is a prime application domain for such technology, since almost all product parts are available as three-dimensional models. The consideration of ergonomic aspects during assembly tasks, the evaluation of humanmachine interfaces in the car interior, design decision meetings as well as customer presentations serve as but a few examples, wherein the benefit of virtual reality technology is obvious. All these tasks require the involvement of a group of people with different expertises. However, current stereoscopic display systems only provide correct 3D-images for a single user, while other users see a more or less distorted virtual model. This is a major reason why these systems still face limited acceptance in the automotive industry. They need to be operated by experts, who have an advanced understanding of the particular interaction techniques and are aware of the limitations and shortcomings of virtual reality technology. The central idea of this thesis is to investigate the utility of stereoscopic multi-user systems for various stages of the car development process. Such systems provide multiple users with individual and perspectively correct stereoscopic images, which are key features and serve as the premise for the appropriate support of collaborative group processes. The focus of the research is on questions related to various aspects of collaboration in multi-viewer systems such as verbal communication, deictic reference, embodiments and collaborative interaction techniques. The results of this endeavor provide scientific evidence that multi-viewer systems improve the usability of VR-applications for various automotive scenarios, wherein co-located group discussions are necessary. The thesis identifies and discusses the requirements for these scenarios as well as the limitations of applying multi-viewer technology in this context. A particularly important gesture in real-world group discussions is referencing an object by pointing with the hand and the accuracy which can be expected in VR is made evident. A novel two-user seating buck is introduced for the evaluation of ergonomics in a car interior and the requirements on avatar representations for users sitting in a car are identified. Collaborative assembly tasks require high precision. The novel concept of a two-user prop significantly increases the quality of such a simulation in a virtual environment and allows ergonomists to study the strain on workers during an assembly sequence. These findings contribute toward an increased acceptance of VR-technology for collaborative development meetings in the automotive industry and other domains.},
  subject      = {Virtuelle Realit{\"a}t},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Riehmann,
  author    = {Riehmann, Patrick},
  title     = {Advanced Visual Interfaces for Informed Decision-Making},
  publisher = {Patrick Riehmann},
  doi       = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.2454},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20150907-24542},
  school      = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar},
  pages     = {132},
  abstract  = {This thesis presents new interactive visualization techniques and systems intended to support users with real-world decisions such as selecting a product from a large variety of similar offerings, finding appropriate wording as a non-native speaker, and assessing an alleged case of plagiarism. The Product Explorer is a significantly improved interactive Parallel Coordinates display for facilitating the product selection process in cases where many attributes and numerous alternatives have to be considered. A novel visual representation for categorical and ordered data with only few occurring values, the so-called extended areas, in combination with cubic curves for connecting the parallel axes, are crucial for providing an effective overview of the entire dataset and to facilitate the tracing of individual products. The visual query interface supports users in quickly narrowing down the product search to a small subset or even a single product. The scalability of the approach towards a large number of attributes and products is enhanced by the possibility of setting some constraints on final attributes and, therefore, reducing the number of considered attributes and data items. Furthermore, an attribute repository allows users to focus on the most important attributes at first and to bring in additional criteria for product selection later in the decision process. A user study confirmed that the Product Explorer is indeed an excellent tool for its intended purpose for casual users. The Wordgraph is a layered graph visualization for the interactive exploration of search results for complex keywords-in-context queries. The system relies on the Netspeak web service and is designed to support non-native speakers in finding customary phrases. Uncertainties about the commonness of phrases are expressed with the help of wildcard-based queries. The visualization presents the alternatives for the wildcards in a multi-column layout: one column per wildcard with the other query fragments in between. The Wordgraph visualization displays the sorted results for all wildcards at once by appropriately arranging the words of each column. A user study confirmed that this is a significant advantage over simple textual result lists. Furthermore, visual interfaces to filter, navigate, and expand the graph allow interactive refinement and expansion of wildcard-containing queries. Furthermore, this thesis presents an advanced visual analysis tool for assessing and presenting alleged cases of plagiarism and provides a three-level approach for exploring the so-called finding spots in their context. The overview shows the relationship of the entire suspicious document to the set of source documents. An intermediate glyph-based view reveals the structural and textual differences and similarities of a set of finding spots and their corresponding source text fragments. Eventually, the actual fragments of the finding spot can be shown in a side-by-side view with a novel structured wrapping of both the source, as well as the suspicious text. The three different levels of detail are tied together by versatile navigation and selection operations. Reviews with plagiarism experts confirm that this tool can effectively support their workflow and provides a significant improvement over existing static visualizations for assessing and presenting plagiarism cases. The three main contributions of this research have a lot in common aside from being carefully designed and scientifically grounded solutions to real-world decision problems. The first two visualizations facilitate the decision for a single possibility out of many alternatives, whereas the latter ones deal with text at varying levels of detail. All visual representations are clearly structured based on horizontal and vertical layers contained in a single view and they all employ edges for depicting the most important relationships between attributes, words, or different levels of detail. A detailed analysis considering the context of the established decision-making literature reveals that important steps of common decision models are well-supported by the three visualization systems presented in this thesis.},
  subject      = {Informatik},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Lux,
  author    = {Lux, Christopher},
  title     = {A Data-Virtualization System for Large Model Visualization},
  doi       = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.1985},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20130725-19855},
  school      = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar},
  pages     = {211},
  abstract  = {Interactive scientific visualizations are widely used for the visual exploration and examination of physical data resulting from measurements or simulations. Driven by technical advancements of data acquisition and simulation technologies, especially in the geo-scientific domain, large amounts of highly detailed subsurface data are generated. The oil and gas industry is particularly pushing such developments as hydrocarbon reservoirs are increasingly difficult to discover and exploit. Suitable visualization techniques are vital for the discovery of the reservoirs as well as their development and production. However, the ever-growing scale and complexity of geo-scientific data sets result in an expanding disparity between the size of the data and the capabilities of current computer systems with regard to limited memory and computing resources. In this thesis we present a unified out-of-core data-virtualization system supporting geo-scientific data sets consisting of multiple large seismic volumes and height-field surfaces, wherein each data set may exceed the size of the graphics memory or possibly even the main memory. Current data sets fall within the range of hundreds of gigabytes up to terabytes in size. Through the mutual utilization of memory and bandwidth resources by multiple data sets, our data-management system is able to share and balance limited system resources among different data sets. We employ multi-resolution methods based on hierarchical octree and quadtree data structures to generate level-of-detail working sets of the data stored in main memory and graphics memory for rendering. The working set generation in our system is based on a common feedback mechanism with inherent support for translucent geometric and volumetric data sets. This feedback mechanism collects information about required levels of detail during the rendering process and is capable of directly resolving data visibility without the application of any costly occlusion culling approaches. A central goal of the proposed out-of-core data management system is an effective virtualization of large data sets. Through an abstraction of the level-of-detail working sets, our system allows developers to work with extremely large data sets independent of their complex internal data representations and physical memory layouts. Based on this out-of-core data virtualization infrastructure, we present distinct rendering approaches for specific visualization problems of large geo-scientific data sets. We demonstrate the application of our data virtualization system and show how multi-resolution data can be treated exactly the same way as regular data sets during the rendering process. An efficient volume ray casting system is presented for the rendering of multiple arbitrarily overlapping multi-resolution volume data sets. Binary space-partitioning volume decomposition of the bounding boxes of the cube-shaped volumes is used to identify the overlapping and non-overlapping volume regions in order to optimize the rendering process. We further propose a ray casting-based rendering system for the visualization of geological subsurface models consisting of multiple very detailed height fields. The rendering of an entire stack of height-field surfaces is accomplished in a single rendering pass using a two-level acceleration structure, which combines a minimum-maximum quadtree for empty-space skipping and sorted lists of depth intervals to restrict ray intersection searches to relevant height fields and depth ranges. Ultimately, we present a unified rendering system for the visualization of entire geological models consisting of highly detailed stacked horizon surfaces and massive volume data. We demonstrate a single-pass ray casting approach facilitating correct visual interaction between distinct translucent model components, while increasing the rendering efficiency by reducing processing overhead of potentially invisible parts of the model. The combination of image-order rendering approaches and the level-of-detail feedback mechanism used by our out-of-core data-management system inherently accounts for occlusions of different data types without the application of costly culling techniques. The unified out-of-core data-management and virtualization infrastructure considerably facilitates the implementation of complex visualization systems. We demonstrate its applicability for the visualization of large geo-scientific data sets using output-sensitive rendering techniques. As a result, the magnitude and multitude of data sets that can be interactively visualized is significantly increased compared to existing approaches.},
  subject      = {Computer Graphics},
  language  = {en}
}