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Cover Story |
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Computing at the
Boundaries
Researchers in the Graphics, Visualization by JANE M. SANDERS | |
CROSSING THE BOUNDARIES is a common, even encouraged, practice among the members of a widely known research group at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Research in graphics is one of the core areas of study at the GVU Center. Associate Professor Greg Turk created these images.
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Sometimes they erase the boundaries, and other times boldly step over them.
courtesy of Greg Turk
This activity happens at the intersection of computing, art and multimedia design, psychology, architecture, science and engineering. Here, researchers in the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center, better known as the GVU Center, collaborate to advance the interaction of people, computers and information.
"We study computing at the boundaries between humans and computers, and the boundaries between disciplines," says Bill Ribarsky, a principal research scientist and one of the founding members of the GVU Center.
The barriers that can prevent humans from efficient and effective interaction with computers are the boundaries GVU researchers work to erase. Originally, that meant addressing problems in the three core research areas that form the center's name. "Graphics was how we put information on the screen," explains GVU Center director Aaron Bobick. "Visualization was what to put on the screen, and usability – whether what we're doing is enabling the user to accomplish his goal – was the right stuff on the screen."
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But the GVU Center's research focus has broadened within and beyond its core areas – sometimes by "evolution" and sometimes by strategic design, Bobick adds. For example, by "evolution," graphics research moved from how to display information to displaying it in a photo-realistic manner. Meanwhile, quite intentionally, GVU's pioneering use of virtual reality technology to treat phobias has retained simpler, less photo-realistic graphics. That's because researchers found that immersion into a virtual environment only requires simple images to induce an appropriate psychological response in users, Bobick explains.
In addition to G, V and U, the center now encompasses research in computer vision and perception, robotics and sensing, among others. Researchers address problems in aging, education, entertainment, medicine, defense, business and the daily activities of people at work and home.
GVU projects are born from researcher interest and expertise, but also informed by the center's affiliations – past and present – with such industry giants as Intel, Hewlett-Packard Research Labs, Sun Microsystems, Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Visteon, DaimlerChrysler, Siemens, Motorola and Silicon Graphics. Faculty members share their ideas with industrial affiliates, who provide meaningful perspectives, says Jim Foley, a professor of computing who, as GVU's first director, started the industrial affiliates program.
"The best research happens this way," Foley explains. ".... It's professors who are excited about a project, and they get students excited. They have a personal commitment." Bobick adds, "Sometimes it's the students who instruct the faculty."
Interaction with industry also provides an avenue for technology transfer – from innovations and graduates, says Elizabeth Mynatt, associate director of the GVU Center and one of its alumni. "Researchers want to see the connections, the fruits of their work making a difference on industry as a whole," she adds.
In Georgia Tech's Broadband Institute Residential Laboratory, researchers have created the "Aware Home" to develop and test technologies to assist aging adults, as well as the general population, in their daily activities.
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In an Aware Home prototype technology demonstration called "What was I cooking?", cameras under the kitchen cabinets record subjects putting white ingredients into a bowl. The technology helps people recall their steps in cooking if they get interrupted.
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For example, Mynatt's Ph.D. research led her to develop a software design system called Mercator, which made it easier to provide auditory interfaces to software applications. Through GVU's relationship with Sun Microsystems, the system influenced the development of the user interface components of the Java programming language.
Foley cites another technology transfer example – that of alumnus Jim Pitkow. As a student, he led GVU's pioneering World Wide Web user surveys in the mid-1990s. "The surveys helped provide some of the first insights into who was using the Internet and why," Pitkow recalls.
The free data was used by hundreds of thousands, including newspapers, television networks, governments, companies and academics. "To this day, people from around the world continue to view and incorporate the survey data into their analysis of the on-line community," Pitkow says. GVU, Pitkow and Vanderbilt University plan to collaborate on a 10th anniversary comparison survey of the Web next year.
After graduation, Pitkow worked for Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where his knowledge of usability helped him develop technology for personalizing Web searches. That led to the formation of a spin-off company, Outride, which Pitkow headed; it was sold to Google in 2001. Now, years after his graduation, Pitkow says he is still building on the spirit of innovation that surrounded him at the GVU Center.
That frontier spirit drives all of GVU's 30 or so active members, says Tucker Balch, an assistant professor of computing. It emboldens them to cross the boundaries of disciplines.
"The reason I am part of the GVU Center is because there are not strict boundaries or definitions of what you have to be," explains Balch, a roboticist who collaborates with computer vision experts, biologists and behavioral scientists on behavior-based control, learning and diversity in multi-robot teams.
"We're doing fun stuff we love," he adds. "People find natural collaborations and common interests. . . . We can be roboticists or experts in graphics, virtual reality or computer vision and yet find common interests and excitement."
GVU member Diane Gromala, an associate professor in the
School of Literature, Communication and Culture, combines art, design and computer science in her research. She was drawn to the GVU Center for its support of such interdisciplinary work. "I've found the support remarkable, and I'm generally not a cheerleader," Gromala says. "GVU has a group of remarkably creative, very open computer scientists. You must be very accomplished and secure in what you do to collaborate with someone outside of your discipline. These people are, and they are willing to push the envelope and be entrepreneurial."
These conditions make the GVU Center the perfect place for exploring new concepts, says Associate Professor of Computing Irfan Essa, a computer vision specialist who collaborates with psychologists, engineers and others. For example, he hopes to apply his computer vision knowledge to medical diagnosis.
The GVU Center encompasses research in computer vision and perception, among other areas. Associate Professor Irfan Essa, front center, and Professor Aaron Bobick, right, lead researchers in this field.
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"Behavior research shows movement can determine how well people are functioning," Essa says. "Caregivers and health professionals look for this. There are similar metrics I'd like to learn from behavioral scientists. Then we can bring computing technology to bear on the diagnosis of depression and Alzheimer's disease, for example. . . . These questions excite me, and this is why interdisciplinary research is needed."
Problems with memory and other aging issues provide a forum for an interdisciplinary initiative called Aging in Place. It brings together computer scientists, psychologists and engineers. In Georgia Tech's Broadband Institute Residential Laboratory, researchers led by Associate Professor of Computing Gregory Abowd have created the
"Aware Home"
to develop and test technologies to assist aging adults, as well as the general population, in their daily activities.
"The Aware Home project is one of the better examples of truly interdisciplinary work," Abowd says. "We have psychology experts in cognitive aging working with designers of interactive systems. These are people with very different areas of expertise, but with a common set of problems. It's not just multidisciplinary research, but interdisciplinary. . . . This approach is absolutely necessary to solving almost any significant problem. There are very few problems that are just technology problems."
Though it's crossed many boundaries, the GVU Center expects to traverse still more. Georgia Tech's campus has extended across Atlanta's Downtown Connector highway into the city's Midtown district, and the GVU Center has begun crossing that boundary, too. Its move this fall into the Technology Square Research Building will bring researchers under one roof, instead of four, and place them in the heart of a growing high-tech business area.
"The move will offer greater serendipitous interaction among the people in the new building," Bobick says. Now, computer vision specialists will be next to augmented reality experts and roboticists with mutual interests, while ubiquitous computing experts will be housed adjacent to human-computer interaction researchers.
GVU's move to Technology Square will create a more cohesive group, Essa says. "Collaboration often happens as you 'trip' over each other in the hallway," he explains. "You see something that attracts you, and you ask about it."
The move of the GVU Center to Technology Square may also open the door for more interaction with the Midtown Atlanta community as "the center of gravity shifts somewhat from downtown to Midtown," Ribarsky says. He expects more opportunities for researchers to network with government, industry and various user groups.
Whatever boundaries it crosses in the future, the GVU Center will continue to converge at the crossroads, researchers agree. "GVU forms a community," Gromala explains. ".... The community builds programs and research. It's not just a place or a name. It really is community-building. That reverberates throughout the GVU Center's academic and research activities."
photo by Gary Meek
photo by Gary Meek
For more information, contact Aaron Bobick, 404-894-8591
or email afb@cc.gatech.edu.
Or visit www.gvu.gatech.edu.
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Last updated: Dec.11, 2003
