Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

GLOBAL EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS OF NEUROIMAGING COLLECTIONS USING MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT PIVOTVIEWER

Bachelor of Technology
In

Computer Science & Engineering

Cochin University of Science and Technology

ANU M KURUP

October 2011
Department of Computer Engineering

College of Engineering, Chengannur-689121

College of Engineering, Chengannur

Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, CHENGANNUR KERALA

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING CERTIFICATE

GLOBAL EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS OF NEROIMAGING COLLECTIONS USING MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT PIVOTVIEWER

Submitted by ANU M KURUP

Is a bonafide record of the work done by her.

Head of the DepartmentCo-ordinator

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Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

ABSTRACT

Pivot is a software application from MicrosoftLive Labs that allows users to interact with and search large amounts of data. It is based on Microsoft's Seadragon. It's been described as allowing users toview the web as a web rather than as isolated pages. Pivot is a data mining system that allows peopleto visualize data and then sort, organize and categorize it dynamically, whichresults in correlations and trends that become immediately apparent in avisually interactive format. It is a program designed to contextualizeinformation in a much more natural way for humans to digest large quantitiesof information without losing their way. The software runs on Silverlight platform.Microsoft Silverlight is an application framework for writing and running rich internet applications, with features and purposes similar to those of Adobe Flash.Here large collections are managed by the concept of deepzoom technology. Deepzoom technology works on the basis of a pyramid like structure. It allows the user to create a collection of images that can be zoomed and panned in low bandwidth scenarios without affecting performance and delivering a rich, interactive user experience.Deepzoom technology together with the hyper array concept makes the software a powerful one. The pivot paradigm is analogous to the way humans scan and examine their visual environment-with low resolution access to an entire 180 degree panorama, but the ability to rapidly direct the point of fixation on key objects of interest.

College of Engineering, Chengannur

Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

Pivot is a software application from Microsoft Live Labs that allows users to interact with and search large amounts of data. It is based on Microsoft's Seadragon.It's been described as allowing users to view the web as a web rather than as isolated pages. After Live Labs were shut down the stand-alone Pivot application is being hosted by Microsoft Research. The Silverlight control is still available, though.

Microsoft Silverlight is an application framework for writing and running rich internet applications, with features and purposes similar to those of Adobe Flash. The run-time environment for Silverlight is available as a plug-in for most web browsers. While early

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Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

versions of Silverlight focused on streaming media, current versions support multimedia, graphics and animation, and give developers support for CLI languages and development tools. Silverlight is also one of the two application development platforms for Windows Phone 7. Microsoft Pivot is Microsoft Live Labs most ambitious project to date. It is program based on the Microsoft Pivot is Microsoft Live Labs most ambitious project to date. It is program based on the Seadragon.Technology, more specifically it is a data visualization technology called Pivot, designed to help people make better use of digital information. Pivot is a data mining system that allows people to visualize data and then sort, organize and categorize it dynamically, which results in correlations and trends that become immediately apparent in a visually interactive format Technology, more specifically it is a data visualization technology called Pivot, designed to help people make better use of digital information . Pivot is a data mining system that allows people to visualize data and then sort, organize and categorize it dynamically, which results in correlations and trends that become immediately apparent in a visually interactive format. Pivot is a program designed to contextualize information in a much more natural way for humans to digest large quantities of information without losing their way. Most specifically it combines related data anything from pictures, videos and maps to batting averages and financials into large collections that can then be manipulated, sorted, filtered and examined visually. In this way, the data itself can help shape and inform the way it is presented. Thus, instead of having to struggle to understand data and then apply it to a problem, Pivot works in unison with a person to come to an optimal solution. Currently information seekers are stuck in the old way of viewing information, limited by browsers to view information only in the context of next and previous. Pivot allows users to aggregate this information and view it to see if there are any recognizable patterns in the information. The value of such tool is that you can begin exploring with an idea and Pivot works with users to discover information that might have otherwise not been seen. This is important because it has been found that if you make it a sudden transition, people lose their way,but if you make it very smooth and continuous, people have a mental model of how they got to where they are.

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Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

Another interesting aspect about Pivot is that it works with any type of data. In fact, the Pivot Collections range from Wikipedia entries to the 2009 International Union for Conservation of Nature Endangered List. This gives Pivot immense value because its capabilities are transferable to any industry. At the heart of the Pivot program are the Collections that combine large groups of similar information so we can begin viewing the Web as a "web" rather than a series of isolated pages. Surprisingly enough, new collections can be created with no programming and are composed of a collection of data. These data collections are composed of two components, the XML (the descriptive component of the collection), and the images (the visual representation of the data). Pivot is able to filter through images and information seamlessly because the images are described in Deep Zoom format, a component of the Seadragon Technology.

Pivot is an experimental technology that allows people to visualize data and then sort, organize and categorize it dynamically. The result is that correlations, exceptions and trends become immediately apparent in ways they cant when information is stuck in rows and columns. The program is designed to provide a much more natural way for humans to digest large palettes of information without losing their way an idea that anyone who has analyzed giant spreadsheets may welcome. And while it has something in common with spreadsheets and many other technologies, Flake says Pivot is so new and different that its difficult to even picture what it does without seeing it in action.With Pivot you can interact with data in a way that is powerful, informative and fun. Pivot combines related data anything from pictures, videos and maps to batting averages and financials into large collections that can then be manipulated, sorted, filtered and examined visually. In this way, the data itself can help shape and inform the way it is presented.

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Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

The continuity and smoothness Pivot provides in surfing through data is important to help users understand what theyre looking at, and how they got there. Pivot works with almost any kind of data, its potential uses are as varied as the types of information available today in other words, practically infinite. A Pivot collection designed to help study the history of movies, for example, could sort by male or female leads, and then sort again to find their most frequently occurring co-star. The user could then pivot the information again, to shape the display of the movies themselves, perhaps by decade. More serious uses of Pivot included a school district study that showed investments against test scores, attendance rates, teacher salaries and other data related geographically to local schools. The collection mapped out correlations between high-performing schools and high-performing students with the hope of lending insight into difficult policy decisions. Yet another early example came from Microsofts own internal marketing group, which used Pivot to examine its Internet advertising over the past year. As director of reporting and digital analytics within Microsofts global marketing organization, Michael Moore monitors click-through rates and other measurements to determine the effectiveness of ads placed on the Internet. Moore says a real strength of Pivot is its ability to combine hard data, such as click-throughs, with images of the ads themselves; a feature he says facilitates a subjective analysis of the underlying objective data. The marketing groups use of Pivot led to some surprising insights, Moore says, such as the fact that images of faces were more effective in larger ads than in smaller ones, or that ads containing messages around the concept of simplification tended to pull in more traffic than others. Pivot solves a problem that literally every business faces: How do you tease out insights to inform decisions that help you become better at doing business? And that concept,makes Pivot potentially relevant to almost any organization that wants to improve what it does.

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Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

Its a question thats too large for any one lab to examine. So to help tap into the collective creativity of its audience, Live Labs Its a question thats too large for any one lab to examine. So to help tap into the collective creativity of its audience, Live Labs has made Pivot downloadable to people who want to give it a try and think about new scenarios it enables to people who want to give it a try and think about new scenarios it enables.

What if you could see all the individual bits of information scattered across the Web in one view and then interact with it in a meaningful way? This is what Microsoft Live Labs' new Pivot experiment tries to do. Pivot makes it easier to interact with massive amounts of data in ways that are powerful, informative, and fun. We tried to step back and design an interaction model that accommodates the complexity and scale of information rather than the traditional structure of the Web. The goal is to let users make connections between pages, data points, photos, etc that go beyond links, with what the developers call collections. The below video is a demonstration and explanation:

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Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

Pivot's ability to display lots of thumbnails and then reorganize and zoom in on them is the tool's foundation. The transition between each view involves a flutter of thumbnails, which sort of provides a link between data arrangements. The browsing behavior looks a lot like that of Photosynth, a Live Labs project that lets you browse giant bundles of photos. Pivot is a browser with a focus on categorization and filtering the results. This ones for finding information and data based on extensive backend categorization. Data & information is put into Collections and anyone can create these collections, some of the collections that come when you install Pivot are:
y y y y y y y

US Presidents World Leaders Concept Cars New Cars Actors Sports Animals

From what it seems, it looks like integrating the vast data collated by Bing and showing it in a more usable and beautiful browser to give you abetter experience in obtaining detailed
information. And it s not just generic information from the web that s pulled but Microsoft has even integrated an option to access the Xbox Live Marketplace. You can now search for game information based Genres, Price, Rating, Dates, Developers. These categories vary from collection to collection. For cars, you ll have Manufacturers, Body Style, Transmission, Fuel, Engine Type etc. Here are some more screen shots of Pivot:

You can view data as a graph bar or a grid. The Xbox Marketplace screen shot is the grid view here is the bar graph view:

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Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

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The Filter bar on the left & the description on the right:

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Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

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The top bar allows you to change the size of the thumbnails, go back and forward, visit your recent pages and enter a URL. The bottom bar you have the options of opening new tabs, going to the home page or the Collections page:

What make Pivot so damn interesting are two things:

The really slick and beautiful UI (which is now becoming a trait in the Live Labs team.) The extensive and detailed filtering and categorization this is the next web.

Microsoft Technical Fellow Gary Flake revealed Pivot as a standalone application based on Microsoft's established Seadragon and Deep Zoom technologies. The application highlights a new way of searching using a series of linked data. In the session Flake demonstrated Pivot several times and explained that the architecture is simple and based on existing web technologies. The application is a .NET client which uses Seadragon and Deep Zoom collections. Microsoft's trident layout engine (MSHTML) or better known as Internet Explorer is also used in the application. Pivot functions over HTTP and all the communication works based on how the web is today. In most cases the content is nothing more than files being served by web servers. The interface is

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Global Exploratory Analysis of Neuroimaging Collections using Microsoft Silverlight Pivotviewer

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impressive and the result is going from many things in a search down to a few things thanks to filtering and being able to see clear patterns amongst that data. Pivots main feature is "collections", they combine large groups of similar items on the Internet, so you can view the relationships between individual pieces of information in a new way. By visualizing hidden patterns, Pivot allows users to interact with thousands of pieces of data in a unique way.

The example above of a Pivot view makes it clear how pitchers outnumber other players on Major League Baseball teams. Subsequent views can display salary, performance against salary, and other information on the fly.

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