Collaborative Research Center
SFB-TRR 161
Quantitative Methods for Visual Computing
We are living in a data society in which data is generated at amazing speed; individuals, companies, organizations, and governments are on the brink of being drawn into a massive deluge of data. The great challenge is to extract the relevant information from vast amounts of data and communicate it effectively.
Typical scenarios include decision and policy making for urban and environmental planning or understanding relationships and dependencies in complex networks, e.g., social networks or networks from the field of bioinformatics. These scenarios are not only of interest to specialized experts; in fact, there is a trend toward including the broad public, which requires the information to be presented in a reliable, faithful, and easy-to-understand fashion.
Visual computing can play a key role in extracting and presenting the relevant information.
In visual computing research the aspect of quantification is often neglected. The SFB-TRR 161 seeks to close this gap.
The long-term goal is to strengthen the research field by establishing the paradigm of quantitative science in visual computing.
News
October 2026
SFB-TRR 161 Researchers Among World's Top Scientists
Prestigious Stanford/Elsevier ranking lists the most cited researchers in their respective subfields.
» more »
Michael Sedlmair Accepts Call to Darmstadt
Project leader of A08 assumes chair for Visual Computing at TU Darmstadt and joins leadership team at Fraunhofer IGD.
» more »
August
RoCo-Spring: The Robust Correspondence Challenge at NeurIPS 2026
SFB-TRR 161 researchers co-organize a competition focused on the accuracy and robustness of methods for optical flow, scene flow, and stereo estimation.
» more »
SFB-TRR 161 Events
Nov 2nd, 2026, 4 pm - 6 pm
University of Stuttgart
Lecture | Reflections from Working on Visualisation with Industry Partners - and ahead
Held by:
Abstract:
With the digitization of the manufacturing industry, energy supplies, and other domains, enormous amounts of IoT (Internet-of-Things) data are collected. Expectations regarding quality, costs, delivery time, durability, and environmental aspects are rising at a similar speed. Data-driven manufacturing and planning opens up unprecedented opportunities to understand the impact of decisions on engineering performance and customer satisfaction. Visual Analytics plays a very important role in turning data into actionable decisions, which more and more becomes a major part for companies for remaining competitive. Visual Analytics has already proven its usability in analyzing IoT data in various projects, as outlined in this talk. However, there are still
some major challenges ahead of us. We are still facing Big Data problems when it comes to providing concise overview over large amounts of data. Further, there are many challenges attached to applying visualization successfully, both from the manufacturing industry and energy sector domains, and also from visualization research perspectives. In this talk I will reflect on our past experiences in applying Visual Analytics in research projects together with industry partners and describe the main challenges we are facing now.
Bio:
Johanna Schmidt received her master's degree in computer science from TU Wien and went on to complete her PhD in data visualization there in 2016. She then joined the AIT - Austrian Institute of Technology as a scientist, before moving to VRVis GmbH in 2019, where she became head of the Visual Analytics group in July 2020. In January 2025, she returned to TU Wien as a Senior PostDoc. In 2026, she started as a PostDoc at TU Graz in the field of Visual Analytics. Her research focuses on information visualization and visual analytics of large time-series data, as well as web-based information visualization. Alongside her research, she teaches at TU Wien and TU Graz, and previously also at the University of Applied Sciences Salzburg and the University of Applied Sciences Krems.
Location:
University of Stuttgart, Visualization Research Center (VISUS), Room: 00.012
The talk will be available via WebEx.
Meeting-ID (access code): 2732 995 4454
Meeting password: 6iCeWR2m3k6
For participants via WebEx: The transmission will kindly be managed by Patrick Gralka. He will be on site and monitor/manage the WebEx-Session incl. Q&A during and after the talk as well. Please don´t hesitate to get in touch with Patrick in case of questions or problems regarding the transmission/your online participation: Patrick.Gralka@visus.uni-stuttgart.de.
Nov 16th, 2026, 4 pm - 6 pm
University of Konstanz
Lecture | tba
Held by:
Frederic Fol Leymarie, Goldsmiths College, London, UK
Abstract:
tba
Bio:
tba
Location:
University of Konstanz, Room ZT 1202
University of Stuttgart: The lecture will be transmitted to VISUS, room 00.012
The talk is available via Zoom.
Meeting ID: tba
Passcode: tba
For participants via Zoom: The transmission will kindly be managed by Dimitar Garkov. He will be on site and monitor/manage the Zoom-Session incl. Q&A during and after the talk as well. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with Dimitar in case of questions or problems regarding the transmission/your online participation: dimitar.garkov@uni-konstanz.de
Nov 23rd, 2026, 4 pm - 6 pm
University of Konstanz
Lecture | tba
Held by:
Abstract:
tba
Bio:
tba
Location:
University of Konstanz, Room ZT 1202
University of Stuttgart: The lecture will be transmitted to VISUS, room 00.012
The talk is available via Zoom.
Meeting ID: tba
Passcode: tba
For participants via Zoom: The transmission will kindly be managed by Dimitar Garkov. He will be on site and monitor/manage the Zoom-Session incl. Q&A during and after the talk as well. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with Dimitar in case of questions or problems regarding the transmission/your online participation: dimitar.garkov@uni-konstanz.de
Dec 7th, 2026, 4 pm - 6 pm
University of Konstanz
Lecture | tbd
Held by:
Andrew Cunningham, Adelaide University, Australia
Abstract:
tba.
Bio:
tba
Location:
University of Konstanz, Room ZT 1202
University of Stuttgart: The lecture will be transmitted to VISUS, room 00.012
The talk is available via Zoom.
Meeting ID: tba
Passcode: tba
For participants via Zoom: The transmission will kindly be managed by Dimitar Garkov. He will be on site and monitor/manage the Zoom-Session incl. Q&A during and after the talk as well. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with Dimitar in case of questions or problems regarding the transmission/your online participation: dimitar.garkov@uni-konstanz.de
Jan 11th, 2027, 4 pm - 6 pm
LMU Munich
Lecture | tba
Held by:
Raimund Dachselt, Dresden University of Technology
Abstract:
tba
Bio:
tba
Location:
LMU Munich, Frauenlobstr. 7A, Raum 357
University of Stuttgart: The lecture will be transmitted to VISUS, room 00.012
University of Konstanz: The lecture will be transmitted to room ZT 1201
The talk is available via Zoom.
Meeting ID: tba
Passcode: tba
For participants via Zoom: The transmission will kindly be managed by Kathrin Schnizer. She will be on site and monitor/manage the Zoom-Session incl. Q&A during and after the talk as well. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with Kathrin in case of questions or problems regarding the transmission/your online participation: kathrin.schnizer@um.ifi.lmu.de
Jan 18th, 2026, 4 pm - 6 pm
University of Konstanz
Lecture | tba
Held by:
Helena Jambor, University of Applied Science, Graubünden - TU Dresden
Abstract:
tba
Bio:
tba
Location:
University of Konstanz, Room ZT 1202
University of Stuttgart: The lecture will be transmitted to VISUS, room 00.012
The talk is available via Zoom.
Meeting ID: tba
Passcode: tba
For participants via Zoom: The transmission will kindly be managed by Dimitar Garkov. He will be on site and monitor/manage the Zoom-Session incl. Q&A during and after the talk as well. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with Dimitar in case of questions or problems regarding the transmission/your online participation: dimitar.garkov@uni-konstanz.de
Jan 25th, 2027, 4 pm - 6 pm
University of Stuttgart
Lecture | tba
Held by:
Gennady & Natalia Andrienko, Fraunhofer IAIS, University of London
Abstract:
tba
Bio:
tba
Location:
University of Stuttgart, Visualization Research Center (VISUS), Room: 00.012
The talk will be available via WebEx.
Meeting-ID (access code): tba
Meeting password: tba
For participants via WebEx: The transmission will kindly be managed by Patrick Gralka. He will be on site and monitor/manage the WebEx-Session incl. Q&A during and after the talk as well. Please don´t hesitate to get in touch with Patrick in case of questions or problems regarding the transmission/your online participation: Patrick.Gralka@visus.uni-stuttgart.de
Further Information & Resources
YouTube
The SFB-TRR 161 produces videos to give insights into the projects and the ongoing research. Please visit our YouTube Channel.
Graduate School
PhD students of the projects at the Universities of Stuttgart and Konstanz learn and do research together on their way to their doctoral degree in visual computing.
Visual Computing Blog
The scientists of the SFB-TRR 161 as well as guest authors blog about their activities in computer graphics, visualization, computer vision, augmented reality, human-computer interaction, and psychology.
Partners of the SFB-TRR 161
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© SFB-TRR 161 | Quantitative Methods for Visual Computing | 2019.