9412922 Baker This planning grant award is oriented to the investigation of a knowledge-based scientific visualization assisting system with the purpose of providing intelligent assistance to a user upon the description of the type of data, the analysis of the task, and the system environment for the visualization project for which the advice is sought. The paradigm of task-directed visualization involves the automatic construction of the visualization for the task that has been described. This planning investigation involves understanding the types of tasks for which scientists use visualization, as well as the relation between the task and the effectiveness of different visual displays. Empirical studies are carried out as part of this planning to determine the relative effectiveness of different visualizations of different tasks from a collection of tasks reflecting common analysis goals of the visualization-user to be incorporated in the rules of the automated visualization assistant.
