Thomas Butkiewicz

Background

Thomas Butkiewicz is currently a Ph.D. student of computer science at UNC Charlotte and a member of the Data Visualization Group at the Charlotte Visualization Center.

My primary research currently involves developing highly interactive geospatial visual analysis applications using my concept of a probe-based interface. My current project is a probe-based decision support system designed for a multi-touch table that allows users to freely investigate the results of a simulation of predicted urban growth in the Charlotte region in a natural, efficient, and engaging manner.

I also maintain and expand upon my previous research projects involving change detection between annual urban and coastal LIDAR scans in an enhanced GIS environment, and incorporating error-awareness into terrain calculations such as model creation/extraction and line-of-sight. I am particularly interested geospatial data visualization and interactive maps, however my research interests also include information visualization, remote sensing, computer vision, image processing, virtual reality, and stereoscopic displays and rendering.

Outside of the computer science field, my interests include physics, electronics, medieval architecture, motorcycling, and collecting, restoring, and playing pinball machines.

Publications

	"Hierarchical Multi-touch Selection Techniques for Collaborative Geospatial Analysis". Thomas Butkiewicz, Dong Hyun Jeong, Zachary Wartell, William Ribarsky, and Remco Chang. SPIE Volume 7346: Visual Analytics for Homeland Defense and Security 2009. (PDF)
	"Integrating Time-series Visualizations within Parallel Coordinates for Exploratory Analysis of Incident Databases". Michael Butkiewicz, Thomas Butkiewicz, William Ribarsky, and Remco Chang. SPIE Volume 7346: Visual Analytics for Homeland Defense and Security 2009. (PDF)
	"Multi-Focused Geospatial Analysis Using Probes". Thomas Butkiewicz, Wenwen Dou, Zachary Wartell, William Ribarsky, and Remco Chang. InfoVis 2008 / IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) vol. 14, no 6. pp. 1165-1172, Nov/Dec, 2008. (PDF)
	"Visual Analysis and Semantic Exploration of Urban LIDAR Change Detection". Thomas Butkiewicz, Remco Chang, Zachary Wartell, William Ribarsky. EuroVis 2008 / Computer Graphics Forum, vol. 27, num. 3, 2008. (PDF) and slides (PPT)
	"Visual Analysis for Live LIDAR Battlefield Change Detection". Thomas Butkiewicz, Remco Chang, Zachary Wartell, William Ribarsky. SPIE Defense and Security Symposium 2008. (PDF)
	"Visualizing Uncertainty for Geographical Information in Global Terrorism Database". Josh Jones, Remco Chang, Thomas Butkiewicz, William Ribarsky. SPIE Defense and Security Symposium 2008. (PDF)
	"Legible Simplification of Textured Urban Models". Remco Chang, Thomas Butkiewicz, Caroline Ziemkiewicz, Zachary Wartell, Nancy Pollard, William Ribarsky. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CG&A) Special Issue on Procedural Methods for Urban Modeling. vol. 28, num. 3, May/June 2008. (PDF) and video (MP4).
	"Visual Analysis of Urban Terrain Dynamics", Thomas Butkiewicz, Remco Chang, William Ribarsky, and Zachary Wartell. In "Understanding Dynamics of Geographic Domains", May Yuan, Kathleen S. Hornsby. CRC Press/Taylor and Francis. 2007. (An image of my LIDAR work was also featured on the cover.) (Purchase Book)
	"Analyzing Sampled Terrain Volumetrically with Regard to Error and Geologic Variation", Thomas Butkiewicz, Remco Chang, Zachary Wartell, William Ribarsky, Proc. SPIE Visualization and Data Analysis 2007, San Jose, CA (PDF)
	"Hierarchical Simplification of City Models to Maintain Urban Legibility", Remco Chang, Thomas Butkiewicz, Zachary Wartell, Nancy S. Pollard, William Ribarsky, Proceedings of the SIGGRAPH 2006 Conference on Sketches, Aug. 2006, Boston, MA, ACM Press. (PDF)
	"Interactive Virtual Client for Teaching Occupational Therapy Evaluative Processes" Sharon Stansfield, Tom Butkiewicz, Evan Suma, and Marilyn Kane, Proceedings of ASSETS 2005, Oct. 2005, Baltimore, MD (PDF)

Unpublished technical reports of my research may also be found at Charlotte Visualization Center.

Projects

Probe-based Urban Growth Simulation

As part of the RENCI initiative at UNCC, I am currently developing a new probe-based application to bring interactivity to CAGIS's urban growth simulation. The simulation's existing results are now able to be analyzed in a exploratory manner, including collaboratively on our multi-touch table. The new interface extends the simulations usefulness for understanding the subtle patterns and factors driving urban growth. It also serves as a effective and engaging presentation tool for the UNCC Urban Institute's outreach efforts to regional policy makers.

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LIDAR Change Detection & Analysis

By creating error models for LIDAR data we can determine our confidence as to whether a point in a newly aquired scan represents an actual change in the urban environment. The extracted changes can be transformed into 3D models of construction and earth movement. Visual analysis can then be used to detect unreported development, tax discrepancies, or to gain an understanding of the growth of a city.

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Probe-Based Visual Analysis of Agent Simulations

By applying geospatial probes to a variety of map views, the user is able to apply visual analysis and information visualization tools to individual patches, regions, or global regions of interest. This work is being also being integrated into the above urban change detection project as well as into the Legible Cities census data exploration environment.

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Interactive Line of Sight with Time-Critical Error

This project takes terrain data from various sources and produces volumetric models with guaranteed error bounds (based on sampling technique and geologic variations), then allows the user to place and move military-type units. The software outputs unit-to-unit visibility for all units, as well as unit-to-volume 3D visibility information for chosen regions-of-interest. The resolution of the underlying volumetric model can be adjusted for trade-off's between the speed and accuracy of calculations.

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Public Safety Log Explorer

This interactive visualization allows the user to explore two years of Ithaca College's police incident reports. It can assist an analyst in finding temporal and spatial crime patterns. One can determine where extra patrols or security cameras may be most useful, or determine the effectiveness of previous preventative measures.

Automated Surveillance and Tracking

This image processing project utilizes adaptive thresholding to perform motion detection in a wide variety of lighting conditions. It can be used for continuous (day, dusk/dawn, night) security monitoring, selectively captures objects of interest (people) by size and shape, and predicts their motion for tracking purposes, generating camera movements.

Anatomically-Correct Motion Analysis

During a VR experiment on reaching motions, this application was designed to allow physical therapists to replay the arm motions recorded by 6DOF electromagnetic sensors on the shoulder, upper arm, forearm, and wrist. Another visualization allowed for semi-automatic analysis of the accuracy and effectiveness of the recorded reaching motions.