EuroVis 2022: Medical Visualization Highlights

(We are very thankful that Yngve Kristiansen, PhD candidate at the University of Bergen VisGroup could write this report looking forward to the medical visualization-related papers at EuroVis 2022 for us!)

It is now the time, EuroVis is coming up and there are a lot of new exciting papers. If you are interested in medical visualization, there are many papers for you! But they are spread across different sessions, so I thought it would be nice to create a schedule for medical-relevant contributions at this year’s EuroVis! Preprints and information is available for most of the papers, but some of them were not yet published, but I still decided to put them in the schedule because I think they are definitely worth checking out!

Monday

(Paper) Toward disease diagnosis visual support bridging classic and precision medicine

Alessia Palleschi, Manuela Petti, Paolo Tieri, and Marco Angelini

Monday June 13th, EuroVA 3 : Applications – Aula Magna Room @ 14:20 – 14:45

Paper page | Video link

The authors present a visual analytics approach for helping medical personnel investigate symptoms, anatomies, diseases and genes during the diagnosis process. The goal of their tool is to combine the classic, often symptom-based appraoch with precision medicine — which considers more factors such as interactions between diseases, individual genes and other factors. They provide a visual analysis environment where the clinician sees a sankey diagram to compare similarities across multiple diseases.

(Paper) Physical Traces and Digital Stories: Exploring the Connections Between Forensics and Visualization

Victor Schetinger and Saminu Salisu

Monday June 13th, VisGap 1 : Domain Considerations – Sala Colonne Room A @ 15:35 – 15:55

No more information or preprint available at the time of writing.

Tuesday

(Poster) Automatic segmentation of tooth images: Optimization of multi-parameter image processing workflow

Giovani Bressan Fogalli, Daniel Baum, and Sergio Line

Tuesday June 14th, Welcome & Poster – Angelicum Garden @ 19:00

The authors propose an approach for automatically segmenting out Hunter-Schreger Bands from images of laterally illuminated teeth. They do this in the form of an image processing pipeline called anisotropy-based segmentation which they describe more closely in their poster.

(Poster) Explorative Visual Analysis of Spatio-temporal Regions to Detect Hemodynamic Biomarker Candidates

Adrian Derstroff, Simon Leistikow, Ali Nahardani, Mahyasadat Ebrahimi, Verena Hoerr, and Lars Linsen

Tuesday June 14th, Welcome & Poster – Angelicum Garden @ 19:00

No more information or preprint available at the time of writing.

(Poster) Visual Exploration of Genetic Sequence Variants in Pangenomes

Astrid van den Brandt, Eef M. Jonkheer, Dirk-Jan M. van Workum, Sandra Smit, and Anna Vilanova

Tuesday June 14th, Welcome & Poster – Angelicum Garden @ 19:00

No more information or preprint available at the time of writing.

(Poster) Accurate molecular atom selection in VR

Elena Molina Lopez and Pere-Pau Vázquez

Tuesday June 14th, Welcome & Poster – Angelicum Garden @ 19:00

The authors present two new methods for selecting atoms in cluttered VR environments. Both methods are based on the same two following steps: (1) the user selects a single atom, (2) the system automatically highlights its neighbors, which the user can then select interactively.

Wednesday

(Paper) Barrio: Customizable Spatial Neighborhood Analysis and Comparison for Nanoscale Brain Structures

Jakob Troldi, Corrado Cali’, Eduard Gröller, Hanspeter Pfister, Markus Hadwiger, and Johanna Beyer

Wednesday June 15th, FP 5 : Life Sciences and Urbanism – Aula Minor Room @ 9:00 – 9:25

Paper page

The authors present Barrio – a configurable framework for neuroscientists to explore brain structures at a nano scale. It is configurable to several scales, so that it can be configured to answer multiple tasks and domain questions. It provides a scalable approach for comparative visualization of such spatial neighborhood relationships. They do this by providing small multiples of spatial 3D views in addition to quantitative 2D views.

(STAR) Trends & Opportunities in Visualization for Physiology: A Multiscale Overview

Laura Garrison, Ivan Kolesar, Ivan Viola, Helwig Hauser, and Stefan Bruckner

Wednesday June 15th, STAR 2 : A Journey Through Multiple Scales – Aula Minor Room @ 15:10 – 16:00

Paper page

The authors summarizes trends and opportunities in visualization for physiology. They do this on two levels. On the first level, they sort literature according to organizational complexity, ranging from molecule to organ. Secondly, they classify which high-level visualization tasks (exploration, analysis, and communication) are used within an existing work.

Thursday

(STAR) Vessel Maps: A Survey of Map-Like Visualizations of the Cardiovascular System

Pepe Eulzer, Monique Meuschke, Gabriel Mistelbauer, and Kai Lawonn

Thursday June 18th, STAR 3 : Health and Medicine – Aula Magna Room @ 14:20 – 15:10

Paper page

The authors make efforts to unify the vast amount of map-like visualizations of cardiovascular structures. They first provide a perspective of different data spaces from which map-like structures can be derived from. Then, they view existing approach in the light of a wide range of requirements from medical practitioners and researchers. Based on these perspectives, they offer recommendations for designing such map-like visualizations of the cardiovascular system.

(Paper) EHR STAR: The State-Of-the-Art in Interactive EHR Visualization

Qiru Wang and Robert S. Laramee

Thursday June 18th, STAR 3 : Health and Medicine – Aula Magna Room @ 15:10– 16:00

Paper page

The authors provide the state-of-the-art for interactive electronic health record visualizations. They provide an up-to-date overview of terminology and recent research in the field of EHR. They survey 34 high quality open access healthcare data sources and datasets and 51 EHR visualization publications, and provide a classification with six re-occuring research themes and the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS).

(Paper) Nested Papercrafts for Anatomical and Biological Edutainment

Marwin Schindler, Thorsten Korpitsch, Renata Georgia Raidou, and Hsiang-Yun Wu

Thursday June 16th, FP 13 : General Public – Aula Minor Room @ 15:10-15:35

Paper page

The authors present a new workflow for computer-aided generation of physicalizations, namely papercrafts, addressing nested configurations in anatomical and biological structures, seen from optimal viewpoints. Their approach aids the user by generating a paper figure version of an imported 3D model. This generated paper figure can then be printed and folded into a physicalization of the object.

Let us know if there are any papers or posters we missed in the comments!

3 Open PhD Positions at the University of Bergen, Norway

The Department of Informatics at the University of Bergen has three open PhD positions. The announcement broadly covers all research areas of the department, but this includes biomedical visualization in the Bergen Visgroup!

They are looking for motivated individuals who wish to pursue cutting-edge visualization research in a stimulating and dynamic international environment. The Bergen VisGroup perform research in a broad range of topics including scientific visualization, information visualization, and visual analytics also in collaboration with a number of application domains such as medicine, biology, geosciences, physics, and chemistry (see https://vis.uib.no/ for more information).

These are fully-funded positions with a gross annual salary of NOK 491K (approx. EUR 50K).

The application deadline is May 22, 2022.

Official announcement and online application:
https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/225038/phd-research-fellow-in-informatics-3-positions

Research Associate for visual analytics of heterogeneous medical data in Hannover, Germany

The Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics (PLRI) of TU Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School (MHH) offers a position as Research Associate for visual analytics of heterogeneous medical data (Full Position, TV-L) (f/m/d) at the Hannover site, to be filled as soon as possible. The successful applicant will have the opportunity to get involved in various projects, e.g. in cardiology, hematology, oncology and radiology, and to focus on specific steps of the process from data extraction from multiple clinical systems over analyzing and improving data quality, data mapping and transformation to data analysis and visualization. All projects serve the overarching goal of clinical decision support and are carried out in close cooperation with physicians and the data integration center of the MHH.

Further information can be found here.

The application deadline is the 19th of May, 2022. Do not hesitate to contact Steffen Oeltze-Jafra (oeltze-jafra.steffen@mh-hannover.de) for further information!

Two PostDoc positions to explore the world of molecules and omics at IBPC in Paris, France!

Marc Baaden is seeking two post-doctoral fellows to start immediately in his lab. His lab is focused on the development of novel approaches for interactive visualization of molecular structures, including using UnityMol to create 3D user interfaces and Virtual Reality applications. The positions will involve the development of novel software components for high throughput molecular visualization, as well as challenging biological applications. They are looking for someone that is passionate about Molecular Biology who also has skills in computer programming and graphics design. See more details at the following links:

More information about the institute and work environment is described through a series of short videos with testimonials and overviews.

Phd and PostDoc position in Computerized Clinical Decision Support at PLRI, Hannover Medical School, Germany

Do you want to contribute to changing the healthcare of the future? Are you interested in computer-assisted decision-making for diagnosis and therapy? Would you like to tackle the challenges associated with computerized clinical decision support such as generating explainable and interpretable underlying models, quantification and communication of uncertainty, providing visual guidance in decision model building, model maintenance, and integration of decision support into the clinical workflow?

If your answer is yes, apply for a PhD or a PostDoc position at the Peter L. Reichertz Institute (PLRI) for Medical Informatics, a joint institute of TU Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School (MHH), Germany. You will become part of a newly formed group embedded in a large, highly-motivated, international research team at PLRI, one of the largest university-based centers for medical informatics located in one of Europe’s most research-intensive regions.

Interested applications should check out the links below for more details:

The application deadline for both positions is November 28th, 2021

PhD position in Biomedical Visualization and VA at TU Wien, Austria!

There is an open PhD position at the Visualization Group of TU Wien (Austria) in the area of Biomedical Visualization and Visual Analytics. The Institute of Visual Computing and Human-Centered Technology, research unit Computer Graphics at TU Wien is offering a position as university assistant (prae-doc) for 4 years for 30 hours/week. Expected start: September 2021. Interested applications should take a look at the application details here!

The application deadline is July 29th, 2021.

Open positions at TU/e, the Netherlands!

The visualization cluster at TU/e in the Netherlands is hiring!

There is a vacancy for assistant or associate professor in the visualization cluster at TU/e for data visualization researchers looking for an academic career. Please find more details here and apply by April 30th, 2021.

In addition, they are looking for a PhD candidate that wants to develop new methods on the cross-border between Visual Analytics, Medical Image analysis, and ExplainableAI. The candidate will be developing new Visual Analytical methods for the understanding  of medical image analysis models for accurate segmentation and 3D reconstruction of coronary vessels and stents based on 2D X-rays. The work of the PhD should result in better models that will be more easily deployed in the clinic.. Please find more details about this position here and apply by May 31st, 2021.

Upcoming events and calls!

Good times all around for all things medical visualization, as there are many activities coming up! Here is a brief round-up:

  • A new online workshop series on bridging visual computing with radiation oncology is starting tomorrow with its first event! Please find more details and registration information at the webpage. The first event will be a symposium: “The symposium will feature invited thematic talks from two specialists: Uulke van der Heide (medical physics) and Noeska Smit (medical visualization), followed by a first round of discussions and interactions.”
  • If you’re working in a specialized application area within biomedical visualization or see opportunities for an underexplored area to thrive, consider submitting an Application Spotlight session proposal to IEEE VIS to draw the attention of the visualization community to this area! Check out the full call here and submit your short proposal by April 30th.
  • The first Bio+MedVis Spring School will take place virtually from May 17 to 21st. Participants can anticipate a week full of excellent talks, given by leading experts in Biological and Medical Visualization. The program is enriched by mentoring sessions, focusing on Ph.D. studies and visualization design, practical tutorials on visualization tools and libraries, and invited talks by experts from clinical practice and industry. Register for free via the official webpage by May 3rd.
  • The Karl-Heinz Höhne Award will be handed out this year again for excellent contributions in the field of medical visualization. Young scientists are invited to apply with a master thesis or publications in the context of a not yet accomplished doctoral thesis which has been published or submitted between January 2018 and May 2021. Please find out more and apply here by May 21th!
  • The EuroGraphics Workshop on Visual Computing in Biology and Medicine (VCBM) will be held in Paris and online from the 22nd to the 24th of September. They have just released their call for papers as well. Please check out the full call here and submit your papers by July 2nd.

I hope to see you at some if not all of these events 🙂 If you know of more relevant events for our community, feel free to share them in the comments section!

Open PhD positions in biomedical visualization at TU Wien, Austria!

Five Ph.D. Positions in Visualization

We’ve received word that there are currently five open PhD positions at the Visualization Group of TU Wien (Austria) in Computer Science in the area of (Biomedical) Visualization and Visual Computing:

The application deadline is April 22nd, 2021.

Open PhD positions in medical visualization at VRVis, Austria!

Currently, VRVis in Austria, is looking to fill several exciting positions in medical visualization. VRVis is Austria’s leading research center in the field of visual computing focusing on innovative application-oriented research and development projects. They are currently hiring:

Brain* https://www.vrvis.at/en/products-solutions/products-licenses/brain

In addition, they are also looking for a PhD candidate (f/m/d) in Computer Vision/AR/Signal Processing. Check out the links for more detailed information!