Abstract: Bouwer and Bredeweg, 2001
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Publication details
Bouwer and Bredeweg, 2001.
VisiGarp: Graphical Representation of Qualitative Simulation Models.
(in book) Artificial Intelligence in Education:
AI-ED in the Wired and Wireless Future.
(eds) J.D. Moore, G. Luckhardt Redfield, and J.L. Johnson,
pages 294-305, 2001, IOS-Press/Ohmsha, Japan, Osaka.
(PDF)
Proceedings of the International workshop on Qualitative Reasoning,
QR'01, pages 142-149, San Antonio, Texas, USA, May 17-19.
Gautam Biswas (editor).
Abstract
Qualitative simulation models can play a useful role in computer-based
learning environments, since they explicitly represent the domain
knowledge required for causal reasoning about system structure and
behaviour. However, the amount of information involved in a simulation
is often large, which makes it difficult to transform the computer's
reasoning trace to effective explanations. Research on natural
language explanation generation has made a lot of progress in the last
two decades, but in addition to text, graphical representations also
play an important role in the communication of knowledge. For example,
state-transition diagrams, causal networks, structural hierarchies,
tables and graphs all use different visual primitives to create a
context for communication, and to denote relationships between the
different kinds of entities. The structural information encoded in
these graphical representations is hard to communicate using only
text. Although several kinds of automatic visualization already exist,
many of these are tailored to specific domains, or types of data,
e.g., numerical data. Our goal is to develop generic mechanisms for
automatic visualization of qualitative simulation models, and to
integrate these mechanisms into a framework for generating multimedia
(text and graphics) explanations. Currently, we have developed an
interactive model inspection tool, VisiGarp, which automatically
generates several kinds of diagrams from a qualitative simulation
model; a mouse and menu interface allows flexible switching between
these different views on the model, providing both overview and
detail. Further work includes layout optimization, aggregation and
abstraction mechanisms, and integration of graphics and text
generation.
Last modified on June 6th, 2001
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