Plans and Goals

On this page the members of the VRL record and refine their goals for the current semester. This is a living document in which dhl will provide feedback. See the bottom of the page for links to past plans & goals documents.

Current Schedule

Meetings are on Tuesdays. The authoritative list is in dhl's calendar.

• 2:00 - wenjin
• 2:10 - eni
• 2:20 - jadrian
• 2:30 - bb
• 2:40 - dtr
• 2:50 - trevor
• 3:10 - steve
• 3:20 - radu

Current Plans and Goals (Summer/Fall '10)

Beth

• Update web
  • refresh text for projects and themes, add/delete some (maybe "active" as a theme)
  • ensure pubs are all correctly attributed to projects/themes/people
  • identify other areas to improve

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Brad

Projects

• Support the ongoing VRL Group projects:
  • Jadrian's brain research.
  • Radu's Protein project:
    

Assist Radu to integrate a test and any recent code.

• Support collaborative projects.
  • Wrist cartilage support for Eni and Michael.
  • Migrate Win's mri pipeline to run in CIT.
  • Andy Loomis and Andy Forsberg's Adviser program.

• Contribute to the design and development of the new cave. Integrate changes to vrg3d. Simplify the configuration and provide a quick start path for student projects.

• Set up public distribution of diffusion imaging data.

Infrastructure

• Manage the migration to the new file system.

• Continue to write Wiki entries as needed.

• Continue setting up third party software for students to use. Current imported packages are: blitz, cg, g3d, qt, camino, dtk, afni, nifti, vivro, vrpn, glut, and sdl.

• Extend the build system to make kits for public source and binary distributions.

• Improve support for remote development.

• Launch the Windows test system.

• Continue extend the make files to support new features such as additional third party packages.

• Upgrade migrated Linux code to work with gcc 4.3 in conjunction with the summer Debian upgrade.

• Continue to integrate any new tests written by students into nightly test runs.

• Finish integrating the new version of the Nag libraries.

Knowledge

• Learn more about the cave; particularly vrg3d software development.

• Meet (SciVis talk) with students to address any integration issues.

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Çağatay

1. Resolve crossings w/ Geman and Eric
2. Count cycles w/ Mumford
3. Submit the ToG paper and explore the follow up ideas w/ Gabriel
4. Submit the optimization on mesh graphs
5. Finalize the revision of the 2d map paper
6. Solidify the ideas on metric learning through interaction
7. Minimize the ta'ship workload of c. topology class by preparing course material aeap.

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Caroline

Get oriented

• Find out current status of framework
• Acquaint myself with any existing modules / code / results
• Find out who else will be working on it or has worked on it, meet with them
• Literature review
• Learn CPM-GOMS, refresh on ACT-R

Do whatever needs to be done to get framework going

Create a test module based on my earlier implied dynamics work [1]

• Model a dynamics-based assessment of relationships between parts of simple visualizations
• Test whether this can predict users' actual evaluations of a chart's structural properties
• Maybe rethink to tie in more to affordances, interface prediction

Identify other potential modeling projects based on visual structure for future work...

• Predicting the patterns (trends, clusters, etc.) a user sees in a visualization
• Modeling how quickly a user can read high-level information from different vis types
• Analyze interaction affordances in a visualization system

Get funded

• Work on grant proposal
• Find and apply for fellowships / postdoc grants

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David

1. get diffusion normals, one library, and one executable distributed
2. good TBI talk in Chicago
3. support 5 phd students' + trevor's progress
4. si^2 proposal for 6/14, then expedition?
5. wrist proposal possibilities, w/eni (check with Trey?)
6. keep Vis '11 on track

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Eni

• Make progress in the surface analysis/congruency problem
• Draft a proposal for my work
• Read more literature that’s related to my work
• Submit a paper to MRM on tracts

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Jadrian

• Initial thesis proposal, submitted 2009-06-22
• Proposal second revision, prepared 2009-10-15

1. Write up dissertation table of contents, outline, and some hole-filled chapters by July 31st
2. Write up departmental proposal document by September 1st
3. Present the proposal formally to the department in October
4. Define a macrostructure model and cost function
5. Implement curve clustering using the macrostructure model; write up for ISMRM
6. Extend the macrostructure cost function to include DWI values
7. Implement macrostructure adjustment from DWIs; write up for an MRM paper
8. Get preliminary histological data of some kind, either by doing it in-house, working with collaborators, or outsourcing
9. Derive a minimal set of microstructure measurements from histological data
10. Copy South Africa data from DVDs and work with Amanda to import and process it

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Nathan

1. Streamline ROI selection program
   • Axis-aligned ROIs
   • Bitmap ROIs
   • Parser and command-line interface
   • Documentation
   • Spherical ROIs
2. Talk to Brad about tool/library portability
   • Can libcurvecollection and the roi_select tool be ported to OS X, or should we set up an account for Win so he can SSH in and use them?
3. Streamline stats program
   • All line lengths
     • Displayed? Exported? If so, in what format?
     • Also: average length — useful?
   • Density: # of lines per mm²
     • Win will provided data that's already one slice thick, so we can just calculate surface area by counting all the voxels and multiply that by the area of one side of voxel.
       • But to know the area of the voxel, we still need to know the plane in which the cut is happening — might as well write general-purpose program?
   • Calculate FA/MD along the entire length of the line
     • Talk to David/Jadrian about best way of doing this. Win will also think about it.
4. Culling algorithm
5. Try to replicate previous paper results using culling and ROI selection programs
6. ...

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Radu

1. Learning distance metrics from users (with Cagatay)
2. Finalize(revision)/Resubmit maps paper
3. Analysis "nudge" pilot study
4. Prepare thesis proposal talk
5. Create a daphne-module map
6. Deploy existent maps at Immgen
7. Design collaborative module for maps + instrumentation

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Wenjin

• Finish journal draft and submit
• Get at least 1 real brain data on double-PGSE acquisition (work with Ed)
• MICCAI workshop
• Get ready for thesis proposal
• (Maybe) Define additional axon estimation application areas: brain tumor inflammation, Wrist fiber, etc.

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Steve

Comps progress

1. Receive brain+code dump from Trevor re: interaction histories (meet to discuss before 6/7)
2. Application integration for interaction histories
   • Get G3D history library from Trevor asap, and implement sample app and some basic interactions w/ history collection by 6/20
   • BrainApp, Brain circuit vis?
3. LCS algorithm over histories for required interaction patterns
   • first draft, test on synthetic data by 6/25
4. Algorithm for remaining time estimation from pattern
   • first pass by 7/1

ImmGen

1. Build Radu's code and look for contribution to extend tools (6/15) - meet with Radu?

Misc

1. VASS Application/Registration
   • draft of app materials (essay, cv) by 6/1 (deadline: 7/23)
2. Work on poster submission for vis (deadline: 7/1)
3. Learn more about Caroline's work before she gets here (read her "Implied Dynamics" and "Visual Metaphors" papers)
4. NSF Grad Fellowship application -- first draft on all parts by 8/30
   • search other fellowships

...

Past Plans and Goals

• Spring '10
• Fall '09
• Summer '09
• Spring '09
• Fall '08
• Summer '08