EuroVis short paper ‘VarVis: Visualizing Anatomical Variation in Branching Structures’ accepted!

The thrice rejected, thrice cursed work on visualizing anatomical variations in branching structures has been accepted as a short paper at EuroVis 2016! This means I can finally show you a video of the work without jeopardizing the double-blind review process:

Abstract: Anatomical variations are naturally-occurring deviations from typical human anatomy. While these variations are considered normal and non-pathological, they are still of interest in clinical practice for medical specialists such as radiologists and transplantation surgeons. The complex variations in branching structures, for instance in arteries or nerves, are currently visualized side-by-side in illustrations or expressed using plain text in medical publications.
In this work, we present a novel way of visualizing anatomical variations in complex branching structures for educational purposes: VarVis. VarVis consists of several linked views that reveal global and local similarities and differences in the variations. We propose a novel graph representation to provide an overview of the topological changes. Our solution involves a topological similarity measure, which allows the user to select variations at a global level based on their degree of similarity. After a selection is made, local topological differences can be interactively explored using illustrations and topology graphs. We also incorporate additional information regarding the probability of the various cases. Our solution has several advantages over traditional approaches, which we demonstrate in an evaluation.

The other short paper that was accepted is now on the EuroGraphics 2016 conference program, so I guess it is all official now. With all these short papers going around, I somehow keep getting reminded of the Simpsons and a certain phrase more specifically:

We should to get the STAR notification tomorrow, so hope to come back with more good news 🙂

EuroGraphics Education paper ‘The Online Anatomical Human: Web-based Anatomy Education’ accepted!

So last, well, let’s go with week, I hinted at a notification for a submitted EuroGraphics Education paper. I got said notification last week already, but was too busy with the EuroVis (EuroEverything!) Short Paper deadline to post about it.

As there is some sort of spoiler already in the title, it is probably not so surprising anymore, but there is an unexpected twist ;)… Our EuroGraphics 2016 Education paper on ‘The Online Anatomical Human: Web-based Anatomy Education’ was accepted, as a, drumroll please, short paper! Since I’m in my shortening-8-page-papers-to-half-their-size-mode (see also above: EuroVis Short Paper) anyway, good timing I guess 🙂

I updated the demo video with the latest version of the OAH, which now features textures and will soon be deployed in an upcoming Coursera MOOC on Anatomy of the Abdomen and Pelvis:

That’s all from the reigning Queen of Short Papers for now. My next double notification date is on March 18th, for the EuroVis STAR and Short Paper.

VCBM paper ‘Illustrative Multi-volume Rendering for PET/CT Scans’ accepted!

Our full paper on Illustrative Multi-volume Rendering for PET/CT Scans[1] was accepted for presentation at the always awesome VCBM workshop. I will be presenting it in Chester (UK) in September. For now, a teaser image of our technique:

lasmprvi_vcbm2015
Illustrative Multi-volume Rendering for PET/CT Scans teaser image

The Delft Data Science New Year Event

Yesterday the Delft Data Science New Year Event took place in, you guessed it, Delft! It was a fun afternoon filled with interesting talks, posters and demos. The head of our Computer Graphics and Visualization group, Elmar Eisemann, gave a talk on ‘Visualization and Big Data’ including live demos of remote rendering using Exposure Render, the webviewer of my project made by MSc student Cees-Willem Hofstede, and also his Leap Motion powered controls. 

The Delft Data Science crowd
The Delft Data Science crowd. I was there too! 😉 Picture courtesy of the CUbRIK Project

Check out my first attempt at Storifying it after the jump:

Preparing for a Scientific Meeting for PhD Students

The noble art of preparing for a scientific meeting is perhaps not the most exciting skill in your career, but fruitful meetings are definitely an important component of a successful PhD project. This week I flew to Leeds to visit the Virtual Pathology team with my medical project partners. So, an anatomist, a surgeon and a pathologist walk into a meeting room… This doesn’t sound like the start of a great joke, so I’ll stop myself right there. What I would like to discuss in this blog post however are some tips for having successful meetings. In your PhD there will be many meetings to be had, so you might as well make the most of them. Of course there are several types of meetings: the regular meetings with your supervisory team to discuss your progress and plans, meetings with your project partners to discuss project progress and then there are meetings with other scientists to discuss the possibilities for collaborations.

Scientific Presentation Pro Tips Part 2: The Presentation

A while ago I wrote the first part of a series of posts on scientific presentation tips to present your research in a memorable and interesting way. In part 1, I described the preparation process, now it’s time for the actual presentation giving: what to do, what to wear and other convenient tips.

Scientific Presentation Pro Tips Part 1: The Preparation

In this post I’d like to give you some scientific presentation tips to present your research well. Over the years as a student and now PhD candidate I’ve given many a presentation and had many a course on giving good presentations. In my first couple of presentations I was a complete nervous wreck and could barely breathe, later on this ‘evolved’ into smiling during the entire presentation combined with (bad) improvisational jokes and now I can even state I actually look forward to preparing and giving presentations. I’d have to say the course I’ve learnt the most from was definitely ‘The Art of Presenting Science’ by the awesome Gijs Meeusen and his team, so some of the tips I’m writing about, I picked up there. I cannot recommend this course enough, so do try and take it somewhere if you’re able to. If you’re not, I believe Veronika will do a nice write up about this course at some point (edit: She did and it’s glorious! Check it out here!) . This post will describe phase one in the presentation giving process: the preparation. Whether you’re presenting for your research group, at a conference or elsewhere, always be prepared 🙂