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.

About the SFB-TRR 161

News

All SFB-TRR 161 News

SFB-TRR 161 Events

Oct 19th, 2026, 4 pm - 6 pm

University of Konstanz

Lecture | Beyond the Prompt: Grounding AI in the Human Body

Held by:

Jürgen Steimle, Saarland University

Abstract:

The dominant interaction paradigm with AI today, textual prompting, requires people to translate their intentions into words. This is at odds with the embodied and situated nature of real-world activity. This talk advocates for Body Intelligence: machine intelligence that is physically integrated with the human body and computationally grounded in it, enabling AI to perceive, reason about, and act within human activity as it unfolds.

I will present research from my group that advances this vision across three key dimensions necessary for Body Intelligence. The first dimension makes the body itself the interface. I will present skin-conformal technologies and wearable robotics that turn the body into a surface for both sensing and physical output. The second dimension makes the body the medium in which humans and machines communicate their mutual intentions. The system reads intent from a person's ongoing motion and, in turn, makes its own forthcoming actions physically perceptible. The third dimension grounds machine reasoning in the context in which the body acts. I will show how systems can leverage such context to generate bodily experience and action, rather than relying on the user to describe what is needed. Together, these advances point toward a future where AI is not just an external tool but a deeply integrated partner in human physical and contextualized activity.

Bio:

Jürgen Steimle is a full professor in the Department of Computer Science at Saarland University, where he directs the Human-Computer Interaction Lab. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science from 2022-24. Previously, he was a Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Darmstadt University of Technology. His research investigates touch and haptic interfaces, human-robot interaction, and digital fabrication using new materials. His contributions have been recognized with an ERC Starting Grant, best paper awards at ACM CHI and UIST, and the Best Computer Science Dissertation Award 2009 by the German, Austrian and Swiss Computer Societies. He served as Program Chair for UIST 2023 and TEI 2017, General Chair for ISS 2017, and is on the Editorial Board of TOCHI.

Location:

University of Konstanz, Room ZT 1202

University of Stuttgart: The lecture will be transmitted to VISUS, room 00.012

The talks are available via Zoom.

Meeting ID: 677 9922 7394
Passcode: 758404

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 2nd, 2026, 4 pm - 6 pm

University of Stuttgart

Lecture | Reflections from Working on Visualisation with Industry Partners - and ahead

Held by:

Johanna Schmidt, TU Wien, AT

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): 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.

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 talks are 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:

Mathias Wien, RWTH Aachen

Abstract:

tba

Bio:

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Location:

University of Konstanz, Room ZT 1202

University of Stuttgart: The lecture will be transmitted to VISUS, room 00.012

The talks are 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:

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Bio:

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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 talks are 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 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

Past Events