May 26, 2011

Inner Complexity: An introduction to Landscape of the Mind (Film Launch)

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill under Complex Systems, Conference, Feeling, Lecture | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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11 05 26 Film Launch poster as a jpegLandscape of the Mind is the wonderful work of Kate Hopkinson who also created a profile of my mind.

After all, I not only LOVE complex systems but also break them down to ‘simple solutions’.

I will never know whether I could have developed 3D Metrics if I had not ‘looked at myself’ as often as I have.

And thus I’ve always been fascinated by all interactions between inner and outer worlds – as the only way to make sense of what we are experiencing.

Landscape of the Mind will help anybody towards identifying their unique strengths and weaknesses and thus improve the abilities of themselves and their teams. I wish I could attend the launch on 29th June at 2.30 in the London School of Economics.

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September 15, 2010

Say it in 2 minutes, on video

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill under Competition | Tags: , , , , , |
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The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) believes that it is driving innovation by fuelling the competitive spirit.

To dish out money, it organises competitions. It may take the same time to produce a good video as filling in forms, but it felt less tedious, and I got to know new software.

So here are “Software Lenses” in six slides as a video on YouTube.

Or on the TSB site here.

 

April 27, 2010

Into the light, I command thee

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill under Image Analysis, Image data metrics, Knowledge, Logic, Mathematics, Re-visualizations
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“Into the light, I command thee” is a quote from the movie Constantine (2005).

Bulrushes in water

Input: Bulrushes in and reflected by water

This photo was taken of bulrushes in water. The water surface breaks the light and thus changes the angle of the stems for our eye.

Our software uses the information of the intensities that the imaging technology produces and re-visualizes it in its unique way.

Bulrushes in water re-visualized

Output: Bulrushes in water re-visualized

The uniqueness is due to proprietary transformations that are not available in any maths software. Why not? Because they are all based on the mathematics as it developed from writing.

My thinking developed through programming. As a mature system analyst I revisited science and questioned everything there is to question, not only in mathematics.

That’s how the prototype got written, based on 25 Word documents. It “sees” the light that is embedded in the intensities produced by the microscope, camera or telescope. That’s how medical scales can be processed in the same way as astronomical ones.

The interpretation of what they eye sees and the brain thinks is due to “client domain expertise”. The software does what it is better at than most humans: “number acrobatics”.

The next level of “number acrobatics” is due when

  • either investors ask “how much do you need?”
  • or customers specify the length scale of their images, the number of images they’d like to see processed and the interpretation times they are hoping for.

The rest is verbal for measuring units, interpretation and decision support: client domain expertise gets embedded into vocabularies for menu options and user choices.

 

April 6, 2010

Seeing beyond the light

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill under Events, Exhibition | Tags: , |
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The Photonics Europe exhibition and conference in Brussels from April 12 – 16th, 2010 will include an Innovation Village.

I was accepted as one of 21 ‘innovators’ for investors to consider. Please click on the image to enlarge it. More on image analysis on re-visualizing images and on www.3dm-images.net.  The text says:

Poster for the Innovation Village at the Photonics Europe exhbition in Brussels

Poster for Innovation Village

The Innovation:

“Software Lenses” are the result of using a highly generic prototype for the analysis and revisualization of digital images.

The analysis is a new approach to classifying images, characterising image components, recognizing patterns, and generally measuring on-screen, as a basis for making decisions.

The re-visualization gives added details and new perspectives of 3D structures.

Together, the methods form the basis for a decision support system, by incorporating the knowledge of experienced image analysts.

The underlying algorithms are so general, that

  • calibration images could be used across different imaging technologies
  • reference images could be used for quality control of production
  • standardisation images could be used for establishing standards at nanoscale and below.

Depending on the application, user interfaces require tailoring for image tagging, expert interpretation and end user decisions. For minimum overhead and maximum client exposure, Software Lenses are to be offered as a ‘web service’, thus allowing income from private server installations as well as public subscriptions.

The original input image shows bulrushes in water and their reflections. The re-visualization output shows the water as a curved surface with the grass blades above and below.

A little booth in a little village

A little booth in a small village

The grand back of the little booth

The back of the booth large enough for our A0 poster

 

March 14, 2010

Imaging in Oncology

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill under Conference | Tags: , |
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This was the presentation I gave at the Imaging in Oncology conference where I received very promising feedback: to go to the military because of the real time possibility, and to improve the software tools that a company uses for running clinical research for big pharma…

 

February 25, 2010

Digital Surf vs 3D Metrics

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill under Metrology, Software, Virtual measuring | Tags: |
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Digital Surf is a company that specializes in surface measurements. When asked “what more do I bring to the party?” I wrote the table below which compares their approach with the 3d metric one:

DIGITAL SURF

3D METRICS

Starting points

measurement data taken by surface metrology instruments

2D images of 3D phenomena are used to quantify what is represented in the images

3D surfaces in an industrial metrology lab

2D images are visualized with “3d metric perspective” for the human eye

High level SPM images

“Statistical Parametric Mapping” involves creating an “image” containing statistics

In a nutshell, the 3d metric software offers:

1. On a metrological level

  • The ability to quantify elements of images
    This leads to attributing numerical values to qualities of physical, chemical and biological processes:
  • the analysis of processes over any time scale
  • and states of transition between image elements

2. On an image analysis level

    a. For the human eye

  • New “3D perspectives”
  • More detail
  • “Pixel accuracy”
    b. For 3d metric “software vision”

  • The ability to quantify images as a whole and image elements
    This leads to being able to compare
  • Images as a whole
  • Image elements
  • Image patterns

3. On a data visualization level (sample here)

    The ability to position curves in vertical layers.

  • This leads to being able to discover new correlations, dependencies and rankings.
 

January 31, 2010

Excel charts vs “Visual 3D” & “Metric 3D”

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill under Layering multiparametric data, Open Data, Visual Data Analysis | Tags: , , |
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The CIA Factbook is full of data in tables about the world. Below I downloaded CO2 emissions from 207 world regions and visualized them in Excel and with my prototype software.

Excel 3D Metrics

The added value is to be understood in an evolutionary context. First we put data into tables, then we learned to visualize them as curves which, as an image, immediately tell us more than a series of data.

Then spreadsheet programs like Excel perfected the process of visualizing data by offering different kinds of charts.

The value that the 3d metric approach adds, lies on the level of additional visual and metric information:

Excel 3D Metrics
Data points are connected into colourful curves Data points are connected such that Up lines are green and Down lines are red
Many data curves are presented as parallel curves Data curves are presented in their individual vertical frames
Data curves are superimposed in a 2D axis system Each vertical frame is positioned in a “visual 3D” space
Different types of charts offer different kinds of “visual effects” The presentation in “visual 3D” offers additional “metric values” or “quantifiers” that serve as indicators of different kinds of correlations
Quantifications are provided by axis labels Metric values and quantifiers need to be programmed for individual applications to customise frame values and tailor axis labels

Additional visual and metric information provided by 3d metric screens:

  • the height of individual frames
  • the width of individual frames
  • the diagonal distances between frames
  • the slope and shape of the line that the bottom right corners of the frames create
  • scope for further quantifications through other parameters.
 

January 30, 2010

Complex Data in Vertical Layers and “Visual 3D”

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill under Layering complex data, Layering multidimensional data, Layering multiparametric data, Layering multivariate data, Time series, Visual Data Analysis | Tags: |
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Excel 3D Metrics

This collection of visualizations is meant to illustrate the untapped power of 3d metric algorithms to turn dimensions, parameters or variables into vertical layers.

By juxtaposing the same data in Excel graphs and 3d metric screenshots, more can be seen:

  • new visual comparisons
  • surprising perspectives
  • interesting correlations.

This leads to new insights, new understanding and new intelligence.

The challenge lies in data experts adding the verbal interpretations into menus for less trained users to process the new data visualizations.

These time series have been taken from the Interactive Statistics site of the Bank of England, relating to public debt.

 

December 19, 2009

Towards the Fourth Paradigm

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill under Image Analysis, Knowledge, Layering multidimensional data, Layering multiparametric data, Layering multivariate data, Re-visualizations, Time series, Visual Data Analysis
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A Deluge of Data Shapes a New Era in Computing

This is the title of an article in the New York Times. It describes admirably the ‘problem’ that my software methods can help to ‘solve’. The article is actually the review of a book called The Fourth Paradigm.

The late Microsoft researcher Dr. Jim Gray said in a speech in January 2007 that the only way to cope with an “exaflood” of observational data was “to manage, visualize and analyse the data flood”. Well, my approach to visualizing multi-dimensional data offers exactly that!

Similarly, Dr. Eric Horvitz, an artificial intelligence researcher for Microsoft says: “My goal now is to develop a new kind of telescope or microscope.” Well, my “software lenses” are exactly that!

Offering a new instrument of observation means increasing our intelligence. Let’s hope that 2010 will be the year in which my three software methods will see the “online light” of a web service.

 

December 18, 2009

Innovation Village at Photonics Europe

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill under Presentations | Tags: |
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Today I got the email that accepted my submission to the competition to participate in the Innovation Village of SPIE Photonics Europe.

I consider it “interesting PR” or “PR with a difference”.

Here’s the document that I submitted: Innovation Village

 

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