Heiner  Benking   US Website  Genre Group  The Integrity Papers

           Advanced Visual Interfaces 
                                                       L'Aquila, ITALY, May 25-27, 1998
                                                                                                             Hotel Duca degli Abruzzi  
                                                                                                            http://www.ing.univaq.it/avi98
 

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Objective: As in the previous Workshops, the aim is to bring together experts in different areas of Computer Science who have a common interest in the design and management of visual interfaces.  Both formal methods and concrete applications well fit into the framework of the workshop, with a particular focus on the areas of information visualization, graphical and pictorial communication tools, virtual reality applications, multimedia environments, WWW interfaces, visual languages, adaptive interfaces, and other recent technological developments. Cognitive science and metaphor analysis are also relevant, since they are extremely useful for understanding the basic mechanisms which allow visual interfaces to be easy to learn and use.  

        Interface for Cultural Heritage -
                     Cultural Dimensions of Interspaces

Kim Veltman (Univ. of Toronto, Canada)
http://www.sumscorp.com/       

Heiner Benking (FAW - Univ. of  Ulm, Germany -  infoterm, Vienna, Austria)
ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/homepageHB.htm 
http://newciv.org/cob/members/benking/

 

The tutorial builds on ideas presented as plenary presentations at the German Chapter of the International Society for Knowledge Organization ISKO, WISSENSORGANISATION MIT MULTIMEDIALEN TECHNIKEN - Knowledge Organization with Multi-Media Technologies 7.-10. Oktober 1997, Humboldt-Universität Berlin: K. Veltman / H. Benking:  Frontiers in Conceptual Navigation and H. Benking / K. Veltman: Composing Switching Systems to interrelate multimedia information and adapted to the theme of this tutorial: Advanced Visual Interfaces and Interfaces for Cultural Heritage.

This tutorial will consist of the following elements:

A.    Introduction
B.    Position Paper: Kim H. Veltman
        Frontiers in Conceptual Navigation 1-2:
        Interfaces for Cultural Heritage
C.    Discussion

D.    Coffee Break

E.    Position Paper: Heiner Benking
        Challenges in Conceptual Navigation:
        Interfaces for Cultural Heritage
F.    Discussion

Full copies of the papers will be available for tutorial participants.
The tutorial organizers will also be part of a panel on Tuesday 26 May:

Natural, Cultural and Cybercultural Interfaces: Points of View
(Profiles of the organizers are appended.)  

Interfaces for Cultural Heritage -
Cultural Dimensions of Interspaces

Kim Veltman and Heiner Benking
 
Content
Around the world, contents of libraries and museums are being digitized. Cultural Heritage introduces a series of problems for interface design. It must for example integrate text with images of original objects, their reconstructions, copies, imitations, fakes, with video, film, sounds etc.

Other challenges include how to:

A prototype for a system for Universal Media Searching (SUMS © 1992-1997), which integrates these features will be demonstrated and discussed. SUMS is part of G8 pilot project 5 (Multimedia Access to World Cultural heritage) and of the MOSAIC project which is linked with the European Commission's Trans European Networks (TEN) programme. This system assumes a distributed network of databases housed in respective museums and libraries. A shortcoming of such a system lies in relating different versions of authority files for names, places etc. For this reason, it is suggested that a long-term solution may well lie in a centralized database of meta-data which would serve as a digital reference room on a global level and become a key for a System for Universal Media Access (SUMMA) in a distributed network.
 

Underlying this approach is an ability to: 

Target Audience
Multimedia application designers; multimedia publishers; managers of libraries and museums, researchers coming from different disciplines.
 

Instructors
Kim Veltman is a scholar in the field of new media linked with the McLuhan Program, and President of SUMS Corp. His focus on perspective led from a doctorate in the history of science at the Warburg Institute and studies of Leonardo da Vinci to the Perspective Unit in Toronto. His SUMS interface is part of G7 pilot project 5 and the  EC's MOSAIC project.

Heiner Benking is co-founder of Infoterm, Associate of the FAW in Ulm, consulted UNEP-HEM to establish a meta-database, including a multi-lingual, multi-media repository concepts, for the Harmonization of Environmental Data. For the past 25 years he has been engaged in subjects connected to computing and data visualisation, and for 15 years in the area of consulting, marketing, and market research.
 


The Position Papers
 
Kim H. Veltman

Frontiers in Conceptual Navigation 1

Abstract
Recent advances in technology assume a separation of content and presentation with respect to data structures. In terms of access, however, there are important reasons for relating content and presentation (different views, perspectives). The paper outlines some fundamental concepts underlying a prototype for a System for Universal Media Searching (SUMS), namely, learning filters, and knowledge contexts, levels of knowledge, questions as strategy: purpose as orientation; media choices, quality, quantity, questions, space using maps and projections; multi-temporal views and integrating tools. It foresees how such a system, linked with the equivalent of a digital reference room, will provide the basis for a System for Universal Multimedia Access (SUMMA). The latter part of the paper addresses recent developments in three-dimensional interfaces. It claims that these are particularly suited for certain tasks such as visualising connections in conceptual spaces; seeing invisible differences as well as comprehension and prediction by seeing absence. It suggests also some ways in which two and three dimensional interfaces can be used in complementary ways.    (see: http://www.sumscorp.com/articles/art16.htm )

 
Frontiers in Conceptual Navigation 2:
Interfaces for Cultural Heritage

Abstract
Part one of this study, written as an independent paper, addressed how this great influx of information could be mastered, suggesting that a key lay in using the long tradition of ordering knowledge found in the library world. That paper outlined a System for Universal Media Searching (SUMS), focussed on the use of traditional two-dimensional lists and outlined briefly the potentials of three-dimensional presentation methods. It also outlined how such a system linked with a global digital reference room could lead to a new System for Universal Multi-Media Access (SUMMA).
    This paper surveys different systems for visualising knowledge and emerging interface technologies such as three-dimensional spaces, voice-activated displays, haptic controls and direct connections to the brain. Since such technologies are often presented as solutions in search of an application, the main body of the paper focusses on functions and needs from a user's viewpoint. Five basic functions are identified, namely, 1) virtual guides, 2) virtual museums, libraries and spatial navigation, 3) historical virtual museums, 4) imaginary museums and 5) various kinds of cultural research. The role of metadata is addressed briefly. Particular attention is given to the realms of research, where it is suggested that the new technologies will transform our concepts of knowledge. The implications for cultural interfaces of each function is explored. The paper ends with a series of challenges.
(see:   http://www.sumscorp.com/articles/art50.htm   )

Heiner Benking

Challenges in Conceptual Navigation:
Interfaces for Cultural Heritage
Cognitive Explorations in Augmented and Shared Spacial Realities

Abstract
The challenge is how we make use of augmented realities which can be combinations of physical, virtual and ideal spaces. The paper summarises how the concept of space as a root metaphor and a place to overlay senses and visualize extension is utilized. It makes use of the a priori potential of space to recognise and reason mutually, translate and transform representations, and ways how we can embody and map words in space, concepts in their context. First it will focus on what realities can be, if we make use of the root metaphor space and will see what happens if we jointly 1. Change the optic: lenses and perspectives, 2. Change the maps, models, and paradigms, 3. Change positions and purpose in a Navigation and Orientation Space Architecture.
                   (see soon: {ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/challenges.htm}.    Not publicly
                           available yet;   text is part of the tutorial material and will be published in a forthcoming
                           conference and in a joint piece with Kim. H. Veltman on CONCEPTUAL NAVIGATION)


Profiles of the tutorial organizers:

Kim H. Veltman is Director of the Perspective Unit in the McLuhan Program at the University of Toronto; is a consultant in new media to the CEO of Bell Media Linx, and is engaged in research on new media and standards for Northern Telecom. He has a doctorate in the history and philosophy of science (Warburg Institute, London) and has spent twenty years as a post-doctoral fellow with support from the Canada Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities research Council of Canada, the Wellcome Trust, the Volkswagen, Alexander von Humboldt, Thyssen and Gerda Henkel Foundations, and the Getty Trust. His research is focussed on the history of perspective, Leonardo da Vinci and developments in new media. He has published two books, 30 sections in books, 17 articles in refereed journals and 15 reviews. He has taught at the universities of Toronto, Göttingen, Siena, Rome I and II, and Carleton. His professional memberships include ACM SIGGRAPH (Toronto Chapter), Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Geschichte der Medizin, Naturwissenschaften und Technik (Munich), Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (Aachen), Interactive Multimedia Arts and Technologies Association (Toronto), International Society for Knowledge Organization (Frankfurt), International Society for the Arts Sciences and Technology (Berkeley), Leonardo Society (London),  Museum Computer Network (New York),Toronto Semiotic Circle (Toronto), Visual Information Group (Pittsburgh), Visual Resources Association (Harrisburg) and the Wolfenbüteler Kreis für Renaissance Forschung (Wolfenbüttel).
         Dr. Veltman has given lectures around the world. In Canada, he has given keynotes at the Ontario Library Asso-ciation, the Couchiching Conference, the Ed-Media, Ed-Telecom Conference, at the National Gallery, the CIDOC section of ICOM and the Elizabeth Cummings Memorial Lecture. He has spoken at the Europäisches Forum (Alpbach), the Conference on World Affairs (Boulder) and has given the annual Reynolds Lecture (Boulder). His keynotes elsewhere include Berlin, Brussels, Kuala Lumpur, Munich, Nantes, Paris, Rome, and Vienna.
        For the past decade he has been working on a System for Universal Media Searching (SUMS), which was one of 18 Canadian projects at the G7 exhibition in Brussels (February 1995), and the World Summit in Halifax (June 1995). In 1996 it was chosen as part of G7 pilot project 5: Multimedia Access to World Cultural Heritage and represented Canada at the Information Society and Developing Countries (ISAD) Conference in Midrand (May 1996). SUMS is also part of the European Commission's Trans-European Networks (TEN) project, MOSAIC, devoted to Multimedia Access to Europe's Cultural Heritage. In 1996, he was awarded the International Capire Prize for a Creative Future in the area of science and art integration. A more comprehensive cv is available at http://www.sumscorp.com. e-mail: kim_veltman@hotmail.com
 
Heiner Benking has an engineering degree and worked in the 70ies as planner, data-base expert and technical co-ordinator for a ministry in Saudi Arabia. He is since 1992 Associate of the Research Center for Applied Knowledge Processing, FAW in Ulm, co-founder of infoterm, a terminology research and clearing-house in Vienna, and consulted in the early 90ies the United Nations Environmental Programmes Harmonization Center (UNEP-HEM). The task was to establish a concept to handle meta-data for clearinghouse operations. This included multi-lingual, multi-scale, multi-media access and assimilation strategies. He collaborates occasionally with the UIA Union of International Associations in Brussels. For the past 25 years he has been engaged in data visualisation, for example after 1980 in the European Operation of the 'father' of Interactive Computer Graphics, Auto-trol, and as Management Consultant and Sales and Marketing Director to the 'mother' of colour raster software, UNIRAS, in the mid 80ies. He worked since 1981 as consultant, for example with ExperConsult, an international management consulting house, focusing on marketing, and market research, typically in the data- and communications industry, but also media and investment good industries or venture capital markets. His field since the early 80ies is industry and technology communication and intelligence, Heiner was for example co-editor for the Automation Group San Diego, which published since the 70ies Automation Newsletters and provided 'broker' and technology information to sectors like AEC: Architecture, Engineering, Construction - and FM - Facilities Management - Newsletters which focused on computer graphics, design and management trends. Being invited in 1995 'Creative Member' of The Club of Budapest, he established the Viewsletter of the Club and served as Communications Co-ordinator.
           Heiner has proposed a theme-scape or mind-scape, a Cognitive Panorama' (3Space/Time), which he also calls a House of Horizons and Perspectives, a combination of spacial models which can be seen as an orientation for perspectives and orientations (meta-orientation approach). This Panorama can be understood as a global index or scaffolding for common frames of references (mandate of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro), a layout or de-sign to share views, positions and aspects. It helps to map and index known and unknown bodies of knowledge. The Panorama was introduced at a recent Council of Europe event as a meta-paradigm, a framework of being and sharing, which means that you can hold and edit individual and collective aspects in the same conceptual superstructure.

For more see:    ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/homepageHB.htm
           or his NCN homepage:
                          http://newciv.org/cob/members/benking/
Voice: +49 731 501-910 FAX -929      email: benking@faw.uni-ulm.de
   

 

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