GVU: Center Overview



	Center Overview
GVU Center Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332-0280 Phone: 404-894-4488 FAX: 404-894-0673 Part I: Introduction Part II: History of GVU Part I: Introduction Our Vision Since its creation in 1991, the GVU Center has assumed a leadership position not only in the development of new technologies in graphics, visualization and usability, but also in making these innovations meaningful for the average person, and as easy to use as the telephone. Finding better ways to communicate information between people and between computers and people is key, and we believe that computer graphics, information visualization, and ease of usability are the essential building blocks to turning our vision into reality. We have assembled a team of experts-in computer technology; the "people technologies" of the mind, eyes and motor channels; and applications-who have found a common ground at GVU. Our Center includes 44 teaching and research faculty, and more than 100 graduate students from such diverse areas as architecture, computing, engineering, multimedia rhetoric, multimedia technology, psychology and usability testing. Education, Research and Service Education, research, and service are equally important - and overlapping - avenues to fulfilling our vision. In our educational role, our faculty teach dozens of courses which embody the research foci of GVU. Our faculty also teach continuing education short courses for professionals who wish to stay abreast of technological developments. A Master's program in HCI is planned, and a GVU certificate is underway which formalizes a set of requirements for a minor in GVU. Our research interests are as varied as the academic units affiliated with GVU, and our interdisciplinary focus assures fresh perspectives and innovative approaches. To help keep our research on-track and relevant to real-life problems, we invite direct corporate involvement through our Industrial Affiliates Program. Usability is a strong focus of all our research, since it is important to understand how real people-not just researchers-will use new technologies. Therefore, we have established a usability testing lab in which real users can "test drive" new interfaces, and we can learn how to improve the technologies. In 1995 we launched the Usability Engineering Program, which fosters bilateral communication between user interface development professionals in industry and GVU usability researchers. Our service mission is carried out through the Scientific Visualization Lab, a joint undertaking with the Office of Information Technology, which provides state-of-the-art computer graphics hardware and software capabilities to the entire university. More than 350 faculty, students and staff use the lab's facilities, and that number continues to grow each year. The SciViz Lab sponsors regular seminars for members of the Georgia Tech community to familiarize them with new equipment and software. Organizational Structure The GVU Center is led by director Jarek Rossignac, who provides guidance and direction for our Center. He is assisted by six associate directors who are chosen bi-annually from among the Center's faculty members: Co-Associate Directors for Internal Relations Terry Harpold and Neff Walker manage the lecture series, certificate programs, international exchange programs, GVU library, and interdisciplinary research seed grant program. Associate Director for Industrial Relations Larry Hodges oversees our Industrial Affiliates Program and our annual Research Review Day. Gregory Abowd, Associate Director for External Relations, guides the Center's outreach: our newsletter, this booklet, the technical report series, Demo Days and our WWW pages. Associate Director for Education Al Badre oversees educational issues and programs. Our laboratories are directed by Bill Ribarsky, Associate Director for Service and Computing. A Sampler of the Past Year Recent months have brought major change to the GVU Center. Founding Director Jim Foley left Georgia Tech in June 1996 to become Director of the Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab. After an extensive national search, Jarek Rossignac was chosen to head the Center. An internationally respected researcher and Senior Manager from IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center, Dr. Rossignac assumed his position on August 1, 1996. A survey conducted by U.S. News & World Report (3/11/96) ranked the GVU Center first in the country for doctoral programs in 'Graphics: Computer Interaction.' The survey polled department chairs and heads of graduate studies of comparable programs, and specifically rated such things as each school's reputation for scholarship, curriculum, and the quality of the faculty and graduate students. Ten faculty members have joined GVU in the past year. The School of Literature, Communication & Culture has doubled its representation in GVU with the addition of Anne Balsamo, Matthew Causey, Richard Grusin, and Gregory VanHoosier-Carey. Other new members include Chuck Eastman and Jean Wineman (College of Architecture), Ashok Goel, Irfan Essa and Greg Turk (College of Computing), and David Rosen (School of Mechanical Engineering). Assistant Professor Mark Guzdial co-organized the NSF Workshop on Educational Technology in Washington, DC last fall. The report from that successful workshop led to a new NSF funding program. Welcome... We encourage you to browse our pages for detailed, up-to-date information about the GVU Center, it's programs, research and people. Part II: History of the GVU In 1988, a small core group, led by Larry Hodges (CoC, formerly School of Information and Computer Science) and Bill Ribarsky (OIT, formerly OCS, the Office of Computing Services) formed the Georgia Tech Computer Graphics Interest Group, or TechGraph. The group held seminars on projects relating to the members' shared interests-graphics and visualization. As the popularity of the seminars grew, Larry and Bill decided to pool resources-a philosophy that the GVU Center follows to this day. They combined Larry's SGI workstation with two high-end SGIs from OCS and formed the Scientific Visualization Lab. They later moved into the new College of Computing building and, with Biomedical Visualization and Animation and Video Labs, became known as the Georgia Tech Imaging Consortium (GTIC). The overall intent of GTIC was to create a unified environment for sharing ideas and resources and to encourage research collaboration-laid the groundwork for promoting the disciplines of graphics and visualization and providing a campus-wide resource in those areas, fostering creativity, supporting related academic programs and encouraging multidisciplinary research. In January 1991, Jim Foley joined the faculty of the College of Computing and became the Director of GTIC, which soon changed its name to the Graphics, Visualization & Usability (GVU) Center. With CoC support, the 3000-square foot GVU/Scientific Visualization Lab was completed during the summer of 1992 and dedicated at the GVU Convocation that October. Today, membership in the GVU Center includes 44 faculty from ten Georgia Tech schools, colleges and departments and about 100 graduate students. Industrial involvement has grown, with eleven members in the Industrial Affiliates Program. More than 400 faculty and students campus-wide have user accounts in the GVU/SciVis Lab, taking advantage of the equipment, software and expertise available there. Significantly, although the labs are housed in CoC, about 70% of user accounts belong to faculty and students from other departments. Interdisciplinary interactions are abundant, and the Center encourages them further through seed grants supporting students working on projects with faculty from two or more schools or departments. The Center also offers a certificate program in Graphics, Visualization or Usability to students in several schools. The GVU Center continues to grow and develop as the vision of the founding members becomes more of a reality every day.

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Last Modified Feb. 17, 1997.