Interactive Visual Material Analysis (Habilitation test talk)

The understanding, discovery, design and use of (new) materials as well as material systems are integral parts of materials science and permanently driven to new frontiers by ambitious projects boosting the development of novel materials for future high quality components. Interactive Visual Material Analysis has become a highly important catalyst in these novel research endeavors due to its huge potential for knowledge discovery. Using visual analysis, a multitude of different phenomena may be studied, at various scales, dimensions, or using different modalities, which was impossible before.

Outlining the proximity of materials science and visual analysis, this talk will focus on the intersection of both domains. It will show the interrelations of both fields as well as how they profit from each other. Major tasks for visual computing, visual analysis and visualization in materials sciences are identified, as well as testing techniques, which are providing the data for the respective analyses. Several examples of visual analysis techniques for the materials science domain are discussed in detail, reviewing the corresponding input data characteristics and the direct and derived outputs, the visualization techniques and visual metaphors used, as well as the interactions and analysis workflows employed. The talk concludes with an outlook showing potential directions for future research.