Wipe-Off: An Intuitive Interface for Exploring Ultra-Large Multi-Spectral Data Sets for Cultural Heritage Diagnostics

Abstract

A visual analytics technique for the intuitive, hands-on analysis of massive, multi-dimensional and multi-variate data is presented. This multi-touch-based technique introduces a set of metaphors such as wiping, scratching, sandblasting, squeezing and drilling, which allow for rapid analysis of global and local characteristics in the data set, accounting for factors such as gesture size, pressure and speed. A case study is provided for the analysis of multi-spectral image data of cultural artefacts. By aligning multi-spectral layers in a stack, users can apply different multi-touch metaphors to investigate features across different wavelengths. With this technique, flexibly definable regions can be interrogated concurrently without affecting surrounding data.