Kaiserslautern - Fachbereich Informatik
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In urban planning, sophisticated simulation models are key tools to estimate future population growth for measuring the impact of planning decisions on urban developments and the environment. Simulated population projections usually result in large, macro-scale, multivariate geospatial data sets. Millions of records have to be processed, stored, and visualized to help planners explore and analyze complex population patterns. We introduce a database driven framework for visualizing geospatial multidimensional simulation data based on the output from UrbanSim, a software for the analysis and planning of urban developments. The designed framework is extendable and aims at integrating empirical-stochastic methods and urban simulation models with techniques developed for information visualization and cartography. First, we develop an empirical model for the estimation of residential building types based on demographic household characteristics. The predicted dwelling type information is important for the analysis of future material use, carbon footprint calculations, and for visualizing simultaneously the results of land usage, density, and other significant parameters in 3D space. Our model uses multinomial logistic regression to derive building types at different scales. The estimated regression coefficients are applied to UrbanSim output in order to predict residential building types. The simulation results and the estimated building types are managed in an object-relational geodatabase. From the database, density, building types, and significant demographic variables are visually encoded as scalable, georeferenced 3D geometries and displayed on top of aerial photographs in a Google Earth visual synthesis. The geodatabase can be accessed and the visualization parameters can be chosen through a web-based user interface. The geometries are encoded in KML, Google's markup language, as ready-to-visualize data sets. The goal is to enhance human cognition by displaying abstract representations of multidimensional data sets in a realistic context and thus to support decision making in planning processes.
Feature Based Visualization
(2007)
In this thesis we apply powerful mathematical tools such as interval arithmetic for applications in computational geometry, visualization and computer graphics, leading to robust, general and efficient algorithms. We present a completely novel approach for computing the arrangement of arbitrary implicit planar curves and perform ray casting of arbitrary implicit functions by jointly achieving, for the first time, robustness, efficiency and flexibility. Indeed we are able to render even the most difficult implicits in real-time with guaranteed topology and at high resolution. We use subdivision and interval arithmetic as key-ingredients to guarantee robustness. The presented framework is also well-suited for applications to large and unstructured data sets due to the inherent adaptivity of the techniques that are used. We also approach the topic of tensors by collaborating with mechanical engineers on comparative tensor visualization and provide them with helpful visualization paradigms to interpret the data.
The visualization of numerical fluid flow datasets is essential to the engineering processes that motivate their computational simulation. To address the need for visual representations that convey meaningful relations and enable a deep understanding of flow structures, the discipline of Flow Visualization has produced many methods and schemes that are tailored to a variety of visualization tasks. The ever increasing complexity of modern flow simulations, however, puts an enormous demand on these methods. The study of vortex breakdown, for example, which is a highly transient and inherently three-dimensional flow pattern with substantial impact wherever it appears, has driven current techniques to their limits. In this thesis, we propose several novel visualization methods that significantly advance the state of the art in the visualization of complex flow structures. First, we propose a novel scheme for the construction of stream surfaces from the trajectories of particles embedded in a flow. These surfaces are extremely useful since they naturally exploit coherence between neighboring trajectories and are highly illustrative in nature. We overcome the limitations of existing stream surface algorithms that yield poor results in complex flows, and show how the resulting surfaces can be used a building blocks for advanced flow visualization techniques. Moreover, we present a visualization method that is based on moving section planes that travel through a dataset and sample the flow. By considering the changes to the flow topology on the plane as it moves, we obtain a method of visualizing topological structures in three-dimensional flows that are not accessible by conventional topological methods. On the same algorithmic basis, we construct an algorithm for the tracking of critical points in such flows, thereby enabling the treatment of time-dependent datasets. Last, we address some problems with the recently introduced Lagrangian techniques. While conceptually elegant and generally applicable, they suffer from an enormous computational cost that we significantly use by developing an adaptive approximation algorithm. This allows the application of such methods on very large and complex numerical simulations. Throughout this thesis, we will be concerned with flow visualization aspect of general practical significance but we will particularly emphasize the remarkably challenging visualization of the vortex breakdown phenomenon.
Software stellt ein komplexes Werkzeug dar, das durch seine umfassenden Möglichkeiten die moderne Gesellschaft entscheidend geprägt hat. Daraus ergibt sich eine Abhängigkeit von Funktion und Fehlfunktion der Software, die eine an den funktionalen Anforderungen orientierte Entwicklung und Qualitätssicherung der Software notwendig macht. Die vorliegende Arbeit schafft durch Formalisierung und Systematisierung der Verfahren im funktionsorientierten Test eine fundierte Basis für eine Hinwendung zu den funktionsorientierten Techniken in Softwareentwicklung und –qualitätssicherung. Hierzu wird in der Arbeit zunächst ein formales Modell für das Vorgehen im dynamischen Test beschrieben, das sich an der Begriffsbildung der Literatur und dem Verständnis der Praxis orientiert. Das Modell beruht auf wenigen zentralen Annahmen, eignet sich für formale Untersuchungen und Nachweise und ist wegen seiner sehr allgemein gehaltenen Definitionen breit anwendbar und einfach erweiterbar. Auf dieser Basis werden Vorgehen und Verfahren zum funktionsorientierten Test analysiert. Zunächst wird dazu das Vorgehen im funktionsorientierten Test im Rahmen des Modells dargestellt. Darauf aufbauend werden zentrale Verfahren des funktionsorientierten Tests analysiert, die zum Gegenstand die systematische Prüfung der Umsetzung von weitgehend informal beschriebenen Anforderungen in einem Softwareprodukt haben. Betrachtet werden Verfahren der funktionalen Partitionierung, der funktionalen Äquivalenzklassenanalyse und Grenzwertbildung, Verfahren zur Prüfung von kausalen Zusammenhängen zwischen Ursachen und Wirkungen, Verfahren zur Prüfung von graphisch spezifizierter Funktionalität in Syntaxdiagrammen, Aktivitätsdiagrammen, Sequenz- und Kollaborationsdiagrammen und Petrinetzen, Verfahren zum Test zustandsbasierter Systeme sowie Ansätze einer funktionalen Dekomposition. Die Analyse und Diskussion der bekannten Verfahren im formalisierten Rahmenwerk führt zu zahlreichen Ergebnissen und Verfahrensergänzungen. So zeigt sich, dass in den klassischen, informalen Beschreibungen häufig Unklarheiten bestehen. Diese werden hier adressiert und durch Angabe von Kriterien präzisiert, Optimierungsmöglichkeiten werden aufgezeigt. Darüber hinaus wird an der einheitlichen formalen Darstellung der in der Literatur meist separat betrachteten Verfahren deutlich, welche Vergleichbarkeit zwischen den Verfahren besteht, welche Verfahrenskombinationen sinnvoll sind und wie durch ein kombiniert funktions- und strukturorientiertes Vorgehen eine hohe Aussagekraft in der analytischen Qualitätssicherung erreicht werden kann. Bei der Formulierung der Verfahren im Rahmen des Modells wird herausgearbeitet, wo zur Verfahrensdurchführung die kreative Leistung des Testers notwendig ist und welche Anteile formalisiert und damit automatisiert unterstützt werden können. Diese Betrachtungen bilden die Grundlage für die Skizzierung einer integrierten Entwicklungsumgebung, in der ein funktionsorientiertes Vorgehen in Entwicklung und Qualitätssicherung umgesetzt wird: Hier helfen funktionsorientierte Beschreibungsformen bei der Angabe der Spezifikation, ihrer Verfeinerung und ihrer Vervollständigung, sie unterstützen die Entwicklung durch Modellbildung, sie liefern die Basis für eine funktionsorientierte Testdatenselektion mit Adäquatheitsprüfung, sie können bei geeigneter Interpretierbarkeit über den Datenbereichen zur automatisierten Testfallgenerierung genutzt werden und unterstützen als suboptimale Testorakel eine automatisierte Auswertung des dynamischen Tests. Diese Skizze zeigt die praktische Umsetzbarkeit der vorwiegend theoretischen Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit und setzt einen Impuls für ein verstärktes Aufgreifen funktionsorientierter Techniken in Wissenschaft und Praxis.
Modelling languages are important in the process of software development. The suitability of a modelling language for a project depends on its applicability to the target domain. Here, domain-specific languages have an advantage over more general modelling languages. On the other hand, modelling languages like the Unified Modeling Language can be used in a wide range of domains, which supports the reuse of development knowledge between projects. This thesis treats the syntactical and semantical harmonisation of modelling languages and their combined use, and the handling of complexity of modelling languages by providing language subsets - called language profiles - with tailor-made formal semantics definitions, generated by a profile tool. We focus on the widely-used modelling languages SDL and UML, and formal semantics definitions specified using Abstract State Machines.
Embedded systems have become ubiquitous in everyday life, and especially in the automotive industry. New applications challenge their design by introducing a new class of problems that are based on a detailed analysis of the environmental situation. Situation analysis systems rely on models and algorithms of the domain of computational geometry. The basic model is usually an Euclidean plane, which contains polygons to represent the objects of the environment. Usual implementations of computational geometry algorithms cannot be directly used for safety-critical systems. First, a strict analysis of their correctness is indispensable and second, nonfunctional requirements with respect to the limited resources must be considered. This thesis proposes a layered approach to a polygon-processing system. On top of rational numbers, a geometry kernel is formalised at first. Subsequently, geometric primitives form a second layer of abstraction that is used for plane sweep and polygon algorithms. These layers do not only divide the whole system into manageable parts but make it possible to model problems and reason about them at the appropriate level of abstraction. This structure is used for the verification as well as the implementation of the developed polygon-processing library.
Nowadays, accounting, charging and billing users' network resource consumption are commonly used for the purpose of facilitating reasonable network usage, controlling congestion, allocating cost, gaining revenue, etc. In traditional IP traffic accounting systems, IP addresses are used to identify the corresponding consumers of the network resources. However, there are some situations in which IP addresses cannot be used to identify users uniquely, for example, in multi-user systems. In these cases, network resource consumption can only be ascribed to the owners of these hosts instead of corresponding real users who have consumed the network resources. Therefore, accurate accountability in these systems is practically impossible. This is a flaw of the traditional IP address based IP traffic accounting technique. This dissertation proposes a user based IP traffic accounting model which can facilitate collecting network resource usage information on the basis of users. With user based IP traffic accounting, IP traffic can be distinguished not only by IP addresses but also by users. In this dissertation, three different schemes, which can achieve the user based IP traffic accounting mechanism, are discussed in detail. The inband scheme utilizes the IP header to convey the user information of the corresponding IP packet. The Accounting Agent residing in the measured host intercepts IP packets passing through it. Then it identifies the users of these IP packets and inserts user information into the IP packets. With this mechanism, a meter located in a key position of the network can intercept the IP packets tagged with user information, extract not only statistic information, but also IP addresses and user information from the IP packets to generate accounting records with user information. The out-of-band scheme is a contrast scheme to the in-band scheme. It also uses an Accounting Agent to intercept IP packets and identify the users of IP traffic. However, the user information is transferred through a separated channel, which is different from the corresponding IP packets' transmission. The Multi-IP scheme provides a different solution for identifying users of IP traffic. It assigns each user in a measured host a unique IP address. Through that, an IP address can be used to identify a user uniquely without ambiguity. This way, traditional IP address based accounting techniques can be applied to achieve the goal of user based IP traffic accounting. In this dissertation, a user based IP traffic accounting prototype system developed according to the out-of-band scheme is also introduced. The application of user based IP traffic accounting model in the distributed computing environment is also discussed.