Scott T. Dowson

The STARLIGHT information visualization system

STARLIGHT is an example of a new class of information system expressly designed around visualization-oriented user-interface. Incorporating more traditional information storage and retrieval technologies into its design, the STARLIGHT system also enables the integrated use of multiple, concurrent visualization techniques to support comparison of content and interrelationship information levels of abstraction simultaneously. This powerful new form of information analysis eases cognitive workloads by providing a visual context for the information under study. Originally developed for intelligence analysis applications, the STARLIGHT software is intended to support the rapid, concurrent analysis of complex multimedia information, including structured and unstructured text, geographic information, and digital imagery. The system uses novel 3-D visualization techniques that interactively generate easily understandable representations of explicit and implicit relationships contained in information collections of various types. This paper describes the general theory behind our approach, and the design and features of a Windows NT-based operational system.

A virtual environment for multimedia intelligence data analysis

The article describes an experimental, exploratory information visualization system under development at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The system aims to integrate multimedia data and help users visualize the contents of multimedia databases. The prototype, named Starlight, interactively generates information-dense 3D graphical representations of multimedia data interrelationships. Despite the richness and complexity of the information displays, they remain easy to understand. The prototype incorporates an experimental immersive interface intended to foster improved understanding of, and interactions with, 3D information visualizations. The interface is intended to be of practical use in a production-oriented information analysis environment. Although the existing prototype intentionally addresses a specific class of problems faced by intelligence analysts, the authors feel the general approach has broad applicability outside the intelligence community.

Multiple source information analysis, GIS and Starlight

We present the design and implementation of InfoStar, an adaptive visual analytics platform for mobile devices such as PDAs, laptops, Tablet PCs and mobile phones. InfoStar extends the reach of visual analytics technology beyond the traditional desktop paradigm to provide ubiquitous access to interactive visualizations of information spaces. These visualizations are critical in addressing the knowledge needs of human agents operating in the field, in areas as diverse as business, homeland security, law enforcement, protective services, emergency medical services and scientific discovery. We describe an initial real world deployment of this technology, in which the InfoStar platform has been used to offer mobile access to scheduling and venue information to conference attendees at Supercomputing 2004.

Visual analytics for law enforcement: deploying a service-oriented analytic framework for web-based visualization

This paper presents key components of the Law Enforcement Information Framework (LEIF), an information system that provides communications, situational awareness, and visual analytics tools in a service-oriented architecture supporting web-based desktop and handheld device users. LEIF simplifies interfaces and visualizations of wellestablished visual analytic techniques to improve usability. Advanced analytics capability is maintained by enhancing the underlying processing to support the new interface. LEIF development is driven by real-world user feedback gathered through deployments at three operational law enforcement organizations in the U.S. The system incorporates a robust information ingest pipeline supporting a wide variety of information formats. LEIF also insulates interface and analytical components from information sources making it easier to adapt the framework for many different data repositories.