Introduction
PDA user visualizing real-time traffic conditions
Pervasive Adaptive Visualization and Interaction Service, an adaptive system that intends
to automatically generate resource aware visualization and context-sensitive user-interfaces that are best suited
for the display device. Based on the user’s environment, display devices may vary widely from
cell-phones, desktop computers to high-resolution tiled displays. A context-sensitive environment can
respond to changes in visualization or data context by accommodating techniques to change the interface
at run-time.
PAVIS uses the Pantheon Gateway Testbed as its main source of data. The US Army’s Pantheon Project seeks to develop a system
that processes real-time sensor data using data-mining algorithms to predict impending events and to distribute alerts to troops in the field
as well as analysts and high-level decision makers. The Pantheon Gateway Testbed enables the testing of developed techniques by using non-classified
data from the 830 highway traffic sensors in the city of Chicago, including weather data and text messages about events that might affect traffic.
While the developed techniques are fundamentally targeted for the Army, the testbed can provide immediate benefits for everyday citizens.
For example, this real-time information could be useful to a person driving on an expressway who needs to obtain an estimate on his travel time
to a destination; or it can predict when the city should mobilize snowplows in anticipation of an incoming storm.
Motivation
Substantial advances in computing, networking and displays has enabled significant advances in the ability to process
and visualize large volumes of data. However, the desire to access these visualizations has also increased. Users are no longer satisfied uniquely
with desktop displays. They would like to be able to see and interact with the visualizations on portable devices such as cell-phones, PDAs, laptops,
as well as large ultra-high-resolution tiled displays driven by clusters of computers. This happens to be an extremely challenging problem for the application
developer because expertise in program development, system architecture, visualization and user-interface design is needed to enable a successful “port”
of the application to these various display systems.
With system like PAVIS, applications will be able to handle clients irrespective of their working environments and help users
to visualize data and interpret meaningful information.
Support
This project was supported in part by the U.S. Pantheon Project and National
Science Foundation.
