Katja Einsfeld’s research while affiliated with Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau and other places

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Publications (11)


Work-Facilitating Information Visualization Techniques for Complex Wastewater Systems
  • Chapter

February 2009

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12 Reads

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2 Citations

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Katja Einsfeld

The design and the operation of urban drainage systems and wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) have become increasingly complex. This complexity is due to increased requirements concerning process technology, technical, environmental, economical, and occupational safety aspects. The plant operator has access not only to some timeworn filers and measured parameters but also to numerous on-line and off-line parameters that characterize the current state of the plant in detail. Moreover, expert databases and specific support pages of plant manufactures are accessible through the World Wide Web. Thus, the operator is overwhelmed with predominantly unstructured data. The first part of our contribution describes the project SIMLAR, which covered information visualization approaches for various tasks and devices. Visualizations for mobile devices are especially useful in the case of large, distributed wastewater systems. Especially in the case of an alarm, mobile process information can help to determine if it is necessary to visit the plant. The second part details the project KOMPLETT, which researches intuitive visualization systems for complex plants. Considering the fact that the plant is unmanned and thus even non-experts have to cope with the system, it has to meet diverse requirements: it has to visually and intuitively indicate trends and irregular behavior of quantitative data.


Figure 1. 4D Process Overview (left) and detail extract (right) 
Figure 2. Color Plane (left) and Process Data Rolls (right) 
Figure 3. Rotary Diagram (left) and Conveyor Belt (right) 
Figure 4. Visualization of graph-based data 
Figure 5. Side by side visualization (left) and integrated visualization with Focus Circles (right) 

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Knowledge Generation through Human-Centered Information Visualization
  • Article
  • Full-text available

February 2009

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260 Reads

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13 Citations

Information Visualization

One important intention of human-centered information visualization is to represent huge amounts of abstract data in a visual representation that allows even users from foreign application domains to interact with the visualization, to understand the underlying data, and finally, to gain new, application-related knowledge. The visualization will help experts as well as non-experts to link previously or isolated knowledge-items in their mental map with new insights. Our approach explicitly supports the process of linking knowledge-items with three concepts. At first, the representation of data items in an ontology categorizes and relates them. Secondly, the use of various visualization techniques visually correlates isolated items by graph-structures, layout, attachment, integration, or hyperlink techniques. Thirdly, the intensive use of visual metaphors relates a known source domain to a less known target domain. In order to realize a scenario of these concepts, we developed a visual interface for non-experts to maintain complex wastewater treatment plants. This domain-specific application is used to give our concepts a meaningful background.

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Modulated solutions for decentralized waterrecycling - Results of the research project KOMPLETT funded by the federal ministry of research

January 2009

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20 Reads

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1 Citation

H. Knerr

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K. Einsfeld

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Within the research project KOMPLETT an advanced sanitation scheme for separated grey-and blackwater is developed in order to close domestic water and material cycle.In the second project phase two pilot plants were operated treating separated grey-and blackwater flow in order to achieve optimum water qualities for reuse.Both plants discharge effluent of very high quality, meeting different urban reuse quality standards.In particular for greywater the effluent quality reached highest requirements for utilization, e.g.drinking water standards.Simultaneously new sanitary products and an intelligent diagnosis system were developed and tested.In 2008 the final pilot phase has been started.For this the KOMPLETT-treatment plant has been integrated in an office building for about 150-200 employees as a demonstration plant.There the systems of sanitary equipment, treatment and visualization are coupled and water cycles are closed for the first time.This paper describes the results of the second pro ject phase.


Modified Virtual Reality for Intuitive Semantic Information Visualization

August 2008

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155 Reads

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9 Citations

In order to make use of domain knowledge and thus to create less abstract visualizations of the available information, we propose to integrate information visualization techniques in 3D visualizations of the application subject. We describe a framework that is build on an ontology, an hierarchical visualization toolkit, and a modular concept of modeling 3D layouts. This allows us to integrate semantically related information directly in the scene. We achieve this integration by modifying the real world geometry in several ways. Our concept helps non-expert users to intuitively interact with the system and to understand what is going on.


Interconnected media for human-centered understanding

September 2007

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86 Reads

Today, there are many systems with large amounts of com-plex data sets. Visualizing these systems in a way that en-lightens the user and provides a profound understanding of the respective information space is one of the big information visualization research challenges. Keim [10] states that it is no longer possible to display an overview of these systems as proposed in Shneiderman's information seeking mantra [18]. To overcome this incapacity and to provide a solution to the dilemma of time multiplexing-vs. space multiplexing techniques, we propose the context-sensitive use of a collec-tion of animated 3D metaphors. These metaphors are inte-grated in a flexible framework called HANNAH. This pro-vides the possibility to interconnect media of various types in order to bridge the semantic gab as required for human-centered applications according to Elgammal [6].


HANNAH: A Vivid and Flexible 3D Information Visualization Framework

August 2007

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173 Reads

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6 Citations

In this paper we describe an adaptable multi-purpose 3D user interface for complex heterogeneous information. The framework allows to create visualization instruments by hierarchically combining small visualization widgets. We integrate well known 3D visualization tools in our system and also present new metaphors like the RotaryDiagram. Due to the modular architecture and the underlying ontology we are able to build intuitive visualizations that allow direct manipulation, that directly and vividly respond to user actions and adopt to changing needs. The visualizations provide the user with multiple perspectives on the data and semantic relations between items of various perspectives. The effectiveness of our proposed concepts for 3D information visualization systems is being proven by applying them to an user interface for monitoring, controlling, and optimization of a complex wastewater treatment plant.



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An intelligent visualisation and decision support system for decentralised wastewater treatment plants

February 2007

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274 Reads

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5 Citations

Water Science & Technology

Current sanitation concepts of decentralised wastewater treatment and reuse raise the issue of monitoring and maintenance of such systems. To guarantee high quality of the recycled water, systems with high requirements concerning process technology are essential. With increasing numbers of decentralised treatment systems spread over far distances it will become more and more impossible and uneconomic to have expert personnel on site. Therefore, new visualisation and intelligent information systems are necessary. The paper describes the structure and 3D-demonstrations as a base for information visualisation. Up-to-date visualisation techniques, facilitating the cognition of context-adapted information, make it possible to maximise the amount of information presented to the user without overwhelming her or him. Concerning diagnosis and decision support systems in the domain of wastewater treatment, several interesting approaches are presented, estimating their applicability for decentralised wastewater treatment systems. The intelligent decision support system presented here consists of a combined ontology- and case-based reasoning system in addition to a process monitoring system. It is responsible for plausibility checks, error diagnosis, solution proposals, and optimisation suggestions.


Figure 1: Documents in PlaneMode Figure 1 shows documents in PlaneMode. The Results of the color-coded search queries are visualized by small score bars in front of the documents and, moreover, documents which match more search queries are moved closer to the user than others, bringing the most relevant documents to the front and thus to the focus of the user. Important (e.g. often used) documents show an ani
Figure 2: ClusterMode A variation of ClusterMode can be seen in figure 2: The clusters are semitransparent rings in which the documents rotate. (In this figure the wall structure is being removed, the document space and thus also the clusters are rotated,
Figure 3: Immersive Document Visualization in Docu- World Relation Type 1 is intuitively represented by connect- ing the document under the mouse pointer by curves to the documents to which it is related (see figure 3). These curves might create a mental model like that of thought flashes moving the user’s attention from the current docu- ment to related documents. This mental model is suggested not only by the way the curves are rendered with shining particles, but also by the fact that the curves are animated, starting at the document under the mouse pointer and prop- agating to the related documents. The advantage of this way of representing relations is that documents are visu- ally strongly connected by curves which moreover create an impressive 3D structure. The disadvantage of literally 
Figure 4: Navigation of similar documents Annother provided possibility to navigate similar docu- 
Dynamic Visualization and Navigation of Semantic Virtual Environments

August 2006

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205 Reads

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24 Citations

Although information visualization claims to provide the means to induce mental models of any kind of data, the visualization of semantic information is still an open field of research. Existing approaches either concentrate on the visualization of documents without additional metadata or produce unintuitive expert graphics. This paper seeks to fill this gap by presenting a semantic information visualization system with a dynamic 3D interface and intuitive metaphors. The application called DocuWorld visualizes documents, document meta-data, and semantic relations between documents. The general visualization and navigation metaphor called Thought Wizard Metaphor allows user- and context-sensitive adaption of visualization modes and visualization environments


Multiple dynamic perspectives to industrial processes

January 2006

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112 Reads

The efficient operation of complex industrial processes requires the organization of large amounts of heterogeneous data. We explain that both, these data characteristics as well as the need for context sensitive information interfaces, require the design of visualizations with multiple dynamic perspectives on the data. The benefits of animated 3D information visualization are stated and an efficient motion parallax technique is proposed. Additionally, a navigation concept for information rich semantic 3D environments that frees the user from part of the mental load is described. We present new metaphors for visualizing the data in those perspectives like Cone-View, animated 3D Explosion View, and Rotary Diagram. Moreover, a labeling technique for dynamic 3D environments is explained. Although still at an early state of development, our implementation of this toolbox of concepts, metaphors, and techniques promises to indicate an new generation of industrial process visualization systems.


Citations (7)


... Due to the fact that "getting lost in space" is a potential problem of 3D applications and that the mental load needed for navigating the viewpoint through the scene could be used for more important tasks we proposed the Thought Wizard navigation metaphor [12]: The user relaxes at a fixed point in 3D spaces and uses simple gestures to move the needed information around him. Until now, our system supports navigation techniques like changing the visualization mode or perspective, changing the zoom level, or moving another process element to the focus position in Cone-View. ...

Reference:

Multiple dynamic perspectives to industrial processes
DocuWorld—A 3D User Interface to the Semantic Desktop

... Collaborative visualization has been applied in many areas, especially in relation to networks, scientific research, command and control, and mission planning (Bernholdt et al., 2005;Ebert & Einsfeld, 2009;Tollinger et al., 2004;Viegas et al., 2007). For instance, Many Eyes™ allows users to upload, visually share, and discuss data, in addition to providing a variety of tools for annotation, feedback, and collation (Viegas et al., 2007). ...

Work-Facilitating Information Visualization Techniques for Complex Wastewater Systems
  • Citing Chapter
  • February 2009

... Embora essas contribuições sejam significativas para a criação de AVIs, elas se constituem pela composição do ambiente, pelas modelagens tridimensionais estruturadas (Brito, 2021;Nunes et. al., 2013) ou pela visualização de informações (Einsfeld et al., 2009) (Fontes, 2008;Pacheco;Lino;Damasceno, 2021), mas não demonstram um processo integrativo entre diferentes áreas e que demonstre os resultados dessa integração. ...

Knowledge Generation through Human-Centered Information Visualization

Information Visualization

... A process ontology would include, for example, denitrification, disinfection, and odor removal. A few computer-based ontologies have been developed for wastewater systems [26], [27], [28], though these focus primarily on the technical aspects or operation and maintenance of a plant. These ontologies are not adequate by themselves for municipalities facing the challenge of renewing, extending or retrofitting their systems, as they do not include social, economic and environmental aspects. ...

An intelligent visualisation and decision support system for decentralised wastewater treatment plants

Water Science & Technology

... Visualization techniques have been widely applied in the AEC/FM industry, including the use of nD representations of the physical artefacts and modelled facilities. Color-coding is used to cluster the information using either the layers, 3D models or domain-specific documents (Einsfeld et al., 2008;Roh et al., 2011). Similar visualization techniques are also used in FM such as color-coding to identify the maintenance and usage status. ...

Modified Virtual Reality for Intuitive Semantic Information Visualization

... However, an acceptance rate of this approach by end users is not very high [1]. [4] and [5] deal with the development of a flexible visualisation framework for an industrial process control. The utilisation of the classical schema representation for HMI as a foundation for an automatic generation of the 3-D user interface (UI) was proposed in [6]. ...

HANNAH: A Vivid and Flexible 3D Information Visualization Framework

... Aside from the large display space they also made use of the 3D view to show additional information above the 2D screen. Einsfeld et al. [28] also presented a semantic information visualization of documents in a 3D interface, which visualizes documents, meta-data and semantic relations between documents. Dengel et al. [21] extended this work through interaction techniques for searching and navigating large document sets with a stereoscopic monitor and a data glove. ...

Dynamic Visualization and Navigation of Semantic Virtual Environments