Visual Task Characterization for Automated Visual Discourse Synthesis

To develop a comprehensive and systematic approach to the automated design of visual discourse, we introduce a visual task taxonomy that interfaces high-level presentation intents with low-level visual techniques. In our approach, visual tasks describe presentation intents through their visual accomplishments, and suggest desired visual techniques through their visual implications. Therefore, we can characterize visual tasks by their visual accomplishments and implications. Through this characterization, visual tasks can guide the visual discourse synthesis process by specifying what presentation intents can be achieved and how to achieve them.

The research described in this overview is supported in part by DARPA Contract DAAL01-94-K-0119, the Columbia Univeristy Center for Advanced Technology in High Performance Computing and Communications in Healthcare (funded by the New York State Science and Technology Foundation), the Columbia Center for Telecommunications Research under NSF Grant ECD-88-11111, ONR Contract N00014-97-1-0838.

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