A Thousand Words: Advanced Visualization for the Humanities
FAIN: HD-51475-11
University of Texas, Austin (Austin, TX 78712-0100)
Robert L. Turknett (Project Director: March 2011 to September 2013)
Development of a general purpose interface for large-scale displays that use the computer language Processing in order to visualize large amounts of humanities materials.
Picture This: Advanced Visualization for the Humanities is a Level II proposal to develop software tools that will open up the potential of high-resolution displays to researchers from the humanities. These tools will provide humanities users simplified access to advanced visualization resources, using the popular open-source programming environment, Processing. The short-term results of this start up project will be the development of open-source software that enables Processing to work with high-resolution tiled displays.
Associated Products
A Thousand Words project web page (Web Resource)Title: A Thousand Words project web page
Author: Rob Turknett
Abstract: Visualization uses computers to find patterns and make connections that normally cannot be seen. This project will develop the software tools, skills, and knowledge base to allow humanities researchers to use visualization - specifically on high-resolution displays powered by supercomputers – to perform novel research.
Year: 2012
Primary URL:
http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/tacc-projects/a-thousand-wordsPrimary URL Description: A web page describing the A Thousand Words: Advanced Visualization for the Humanities project.
Prizes
Best DH Visualization or Infographic
Date: 2/18/2013
Organization: Digital Humanities Awards
Abstract: Digital Humanities Awards are a new set of annual awards given in recognition of talent and expertise in the digital humanities community and are nominated and voted for entirely by the public. These awards are intended to help put interesting DH resources in the spotlight and engage DH users (and general public) in the work of the community. Awards are not specific to geography, language, conference, organization or field of humanities that they benefit. There is no financial prize associated with these community awards.
Massive Pixel Environment (MPE) (Computer Program)Title: Massive Pixel Environment (MPE)
Author: Brandt Westing
Author: Rob Turknett
Abstract: Massive Pixel Environment is a library for extending Processing sketches to multi-node tiled displays. This library makes it possible to render interactive Processing sketches across distributed computing systems on many displays. It is intended for tiled display systems, but works in many other types of environments. With simple modifications, a sketch can be rendered across a cluster at the native resolution of the displays, and can greatly increase the amount of data that can be visualized at one time. This library is intended to run on Linux and OSX-based clusters.
This library is developed from scratch at the TACC/ACES Visualization Lab with inspiration from Most Pixels Ever, developed by Daniel Shiffman.
This work was made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Grant: HD-51475-11, A Thousand Words: Advanced Visualization for the Humanities.
Year: 2012
Primary URL:
http://tacc.github.io/MassivePixelEnvironment/Primary URL Description: The main web page for the Massive Pixel Environment software library, which describes the software and links to the GitHub page containing the source code and documentation.
Secondary URL:
https://github.com/TACC/MassivePixelEnvironmentSecondary URL Description: The GitHub page hosting the Massive Pixel Environment library for the Processing programming language. The GitHub page contains source code, documentation, and examples for using the library to render interactive Processing sketches across distributed computing systems on many displays, and a link to download the package.
Access Model: Free and open source
Programming Language/Platform: Processing (Java) / Mac OSX, Windows, Linux
Source Available?: Yes
Prizes
Best DH Visualization or Infographic
Date: 2/18/2013
Organization: Digital Humanities Awards
Abstract: Digital Humanities Awards are a new set of annual awards given in recognition of talent and expertise in the digital humanities community and are nominated and voted for entirely by the public. These awards are intended to help put interesting DH resources in the spotlight and engage DH users (and general public) in the work of the community. Awards are not specific to geography, language, conference, organization or field of humanities that they benefit. There is no financial prize associated with these community awards.
A Thousand Words: Advanced Visualization for the Humanities (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: A Thousand Words: Advanced Visualization for the Humanities
Writer: Turknett, Rob
Director: Cunningham, Sean
Abstract: The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) is developing software tools that enable a new class of scholars from the humanities to use high-resolution displays and advanced computing to create visualizations, interactive maps, and multimedia works at a scale and resolution never before possible.
Most Pixels Ever: Cluster Edition is a library for extending Processing sketches to multi-node tiled displays.
This library makes it possible to render interactive Processing sketches across distributed computing systems on many displays.
This work was made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Grant: HD-51475-11, A Thousand Words: Advanced Visualization for the Humanities.
Year: 2012
Primary URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvOuJ2RwBTAPrimary URL Description: A video about the "A Thousand Words" project to develop advanced visualization tools for humanities scholars, on the TACC YouTube channel.
Access Model: open access
Format: Video
Extending the Processing Programming Environment to Tiled Displays (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Extending the Processing Programming Environment to Tiled Displays
Author: Westing, B.
Author: Turknett, R.
Abstract: MostPixelsEver – Cluster Edition is an extension of the
Processing programming environment that enables visualization
in cluster-driven display environments without extensive
knowledge of programming languages, graphics interfaces, or
distributed computing. The work described here enables visual
artists, humanities scholars and students, and even traditional
programmers to create interactive visualizations in high-resolution
distributed environments with simplicity. MostPixelsEver hides
the inherent complexity of distributed environments by
abstraction, and makes it possible to rapidly create visualizations
on large displays.
Date: 10/12/2012
Primary URL:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6676512/VisualizationLaboratory/Posters/mpe-poster-visweek.pdfPrimary URL Description: Westing, B., Turknett, R. Extending the Processing Programming Environment to Tiled Displays. IEEE Visualization, 2012.
Conference Name: IEEE Visualization
MostPixelsEverCE: A Tool for Rapid Development with Distributed Displays (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: MostPixelsEverCE: A Tool for Rapid Development with Distributed Displays
Author: Westing, B.
Author: Turknett, R.
Author: Nieto, H.
Author: Gaither, K.
Abstract: We describe a software library called MostPixelsEver:
Cluster Edition (MPE) for use in visualization, arts,
humanities, and interface prototyping in distributed
display environments. We discuss the implementation of
the software and its unique qualities when contrasted with
other distributed graphics libraries and environments in
the areas of interaction, rapid development, and rich
library support. We provide concrete examples of its usage
at multiple sites, lessons learned, and a discussion on the
future of tiled display environments.
Date: 04/27/2013
Primary URL:
http://www.powerwall.mdx.ac.uk/papers/POWERWALL-Westing.pdfPrimary URL Description: Westing, B., Turknett, R., Nieto, H. and Gaither, K. MostPixelsEverCE: A Tool for Rapid Development with Distributed Displays, in POWERWALL: International Workshop on Interactive, Ultra-High-Resolution Displays, part of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2013).
Secondary URL:
http://www.powerwall.mdx.ac.uk/Secondary URL Description: Website for POWERWALL: International Workshop on Interactive, Ultra-High-Resolution Displays, part of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2013)
Conference Name: POWERWALL: International Workshop on Interactive, Ultra-High-Resolution Displays, part of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2013)
Massive Pixel Environment for Processing (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Massive Pixel Environment for Processing
Writer: Westing, B.
Director: Westing, B.
Abstract: Massive Pixel Environment is a library for the Processing programming language. It allows you to sketch interactions and visualizations and scale them across multiple displays. We've scaled Processing sketches up to 328 megapixels with Massive Pixel Environment, how many pixels can you scale to?
Source Code: tacc.github.io/MassivePixelEnvironment/
Project Page: tacc.utexas.edu/tacc-software/most-pixels-ever-cluster-edition
Year: 2013
Primary URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS5-QOAwKSIPrimary URL Description: A video about Massive Pixel Environment, a new library for the Processing programming language, on the TACC YouTube channel.
Access Model: open access
Format: Video
1000 Words: Advanced Visualization for the Humanities (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: 1000 Words: Advanced Visualization for the Humanities
Author: Turknett, R.
Author: Westing, B.
Author: Moore, S.
Abstract: 1000 Words is a project to enable discoveries at extreme scale in the Humanities. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), this project aims to make advanced visualization systems attached to high performance computing resources both useful and usable for scholars in the arts and humanities. This paper describes Massive Pixel Environment (MPE), our initial effort toward this goal. Massive Pixel Environment is a software library developed at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) for extending Processing sketches to multi-node tiled displays. Processing is an open source programming language and environment for creating images, animations and interactions. MPE significantly lowers the learning curve and time needed to develop software and interactive visualizations for multi-node tiled displays. We will discuss the applications and implications of MPE for the sciences, humanities, and media arts.
Date: 07/24/2013
Primary URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2484762.2484835Primary URL Description: Permanent link to the published PDF version of 1000 Words: Advanced Visualization for the Humanities
Conference Name: Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment Conference 2013 (XSEDE '13)