Boing Boing: Visual clutter detection

View a recent day: August 21 | August 20 | August 19 | previous days | by month and year

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Visual clutter detection

MIT researchers have designed a software tool that measures "visual clutter." According to the scientists, the system could someday help designers create better displays, maps, and data visualizations and steer our attention in various ways. The prototype tool, written in MATLAB, is freely available here. From the MIT News Office:

"We lack a clear understanding of what clutter is, what features, attributes and factors are relevant, why it presents a problem and how to identify it," said Ruth Rosenholtz, principal research scientist in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) and the paper's lead author.

The fact that one person's clutter is the next person's organized workspace makes it hard to come up with a universal measure of clutter. Rosenholtz and colleagues modeled what makes items in a display harder or easier to pick out. They used this model, which incorporates data on color, contrast and orientation, to come up with a software tool to measure visual clutter.

To be useful, such a tool has to capture the effect of clutter on performance. In their paper, Rosenholtz and her colleagues-- MIT BCS graduate student Yuanzhen Li and BCS undergraduate Lisa Nakano--tested the influence of clutter on searching for a symbol in a map, like an arrow indicating "you are here." They found good correlation between the time it takes to find a symbol in a map and the amount of clutter according to their measure.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:59:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

View a recent day: August 21, 2007 | August 20, 2007 | August 19, 2007 | August 18, 2007 | August 17, 2007 | August 16, 2007 | August 15, 2007 | previous days | all BB archives by month and year

suggest a link \| defeat censorware \| rss \| archives \| t-shirts \| digital emporium \| podcast feed \| mark \| cory \| david \| xeni \| john
Support Bloggers' Rights! HOWTO: Get a link posted to Boing Boing Boing Boing Mobile powered by Winksite Fark rules! This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States [and other countries]. Stats (About our stats) defeat censorware Policies Our first five years' worth of posts in one file	View a recent day: August 21 \| August 20 \| August 19 \| previous days \| by month and year Tuesday, August 21, 2007 Visual clutter detection MIT researchers have designed a software tool that measures "visual clutter." According to the scientists, the system could someday help designers create better displays, maps, and data visualizations and steer our attention in various ways. The prototype tool, written in MATLAB, is freely available here. From the MIT News Office: "We lack a clear understanding of what clutter is, what features, attributes and factors are relevant, why it presents a problem and how to identify it," said Ruth Rosenholtz, principal research scientist in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) and the paper's lead author. The fact that one person's clutter is the next person's organized workspace makes it hard to come up with a universal measure of clutter. Rosenholtz and colleagues modeled what makes items in a display harder or easier to pick out. They used this model, which incorporates data on color, contrast and orientation, to come up with a software tool to measure visual clutter. To be useful, such a tool has to capture the effect of clutter on performance. In their paper, Rosenholtz and her colleagues-- MIT BCS graduate student Yuanzhen Li and BCS undergraduate Lisa Nakano--tested the influence of clutter on searching for a symbol in a map, like an arrow indicating "you are here." They found good correlation between the time it takes to find a symbol in a map and the amount of clutter according to their measure. Link posted by David Pescovitz at 01:59:45 PM permalink \| Other blogs' comments View a recent day: August 21, 2007 \| August 20, 2007 \| August 19, 2007 \| August 18, 2007 \| August 17, 2007 \| August 16, 2007 \| August 15, 2007 \| previous days \| all BB archives by month and year Email this entry to: Your email address: Message (optional):	Boing Boing Sponsored by: Your Text Ad Here Get BB by email: