This paper describes a visualization tool AESvisual that helps students learn and instructors teach the AES cipher. The software allows the user to visualize all the major steps of AES encryption and decryption. The demo mode is useful and efficient for classroom presentation and the practice mode provides the user with an environment to practice AES encryption with error checking. AESvisual is quite versatile, providing support for both beginners learning how to encrypt and decrypt, and also for the more advanced users wishing to see all the details, including the GF(28) addition and multiplication operations. Classroom evaluation of the tool was positive.

This paper describes a visualization tool VIGvisual that helps students learn and instructors teach the Vigenère cipher. The software allows the user to visualize both encryption and decryption through a variety of cipher tools. The demo mode is useful and efficient for classroom presentation. The practice mode allows the user to practice encryption and decryption. VIGvisual is quite versatile, providing support for both beginners learning how to encrypt and decrypt, and also for the more advanced users wishing to practice cryptanalysis in the attack mode. Classroom evaluation of the tool was positive.

We present FlowTour, a novel framework that provides an automatic guide for exploring internal flow features. Our algorithm first identifies critical regions and extracts their skeletons for feature characterization and streamline placement. We then create candidate viewpoints based on the construction of a simplified mesh enclosing each critical region and select best viewpoints based on a viewpoint quality measure. Finally, we design a tour that traverses all selected viewpoints in a smooth and efficient manner for visual navigation and exploration of the flow field. Unlike most existing works which only consider external viewpoints, a unique contribution of our work is that we also incorporate internal viewpoints to enable a clear observation of what lies inside of the flow field. Our algorithm is thus particularly useful for exploring hidden or occluded flow features in a large and complex flow field. We demonstrate our algorithm with several flow data sets and perform a user study to confirm the effectiveness of our approach.

This poster presents a visualization tool SHAvisual for instructors to teach and students to learn the SHA-512 algorithm visually with demo and practice modes. This poster will also discuss some findings of classroom use and student reactions, which are very positive and encouraging.

This paper describes a visualization tool RSAvisual that helps students learn and instructors teach the RSA cipher. This tool permits the user to visualize the steps of the RSA cipher, do encryption and decryption, learn simple factorization algorithms, and perform some elementary attacks. The demo mode of RSAvisual can be used for classroom presentation and self-study. With the practice mode, the user may go through steps in encryption, decryption, the Extended Euclidean algorithm, two simple factorization algorithms and three elementary attacks. The user may compute the output of each operation and check for correctness. This helps students learn the primitive operations and how they are used in the RSA cipher. The opportunity for self-study provides an instructor with greater flexibility in selecting a lecture pace for the detailed materials. Classroom evaluation was positive and very encouraging.

Visual exploration of large and complex 3D steady and unsteady flow fields is critically important in many areas of science and engineering. In this paper, we introduce FlowGraph, a novel compound graph representation that organizes field line clusters and spatiotemporal regions hierarchically for occlusion-free and controllable visual exploration. It works with any seeding strategy as long as the domain is well covered and important flow features are captured. By transforming a flow field to a graph representation, we enable observation and exploration of the relationships among field line clusters, spatiotemporal regions and their interconnection in the transformed space. FlowGraph not only provides a visual mapping that abstracts field line clusters and spatiotemporal regions in various levels of detail, but also serves as a navigation tool that guides flow field exploration and understanding. Through brushing and linking in conjunction with the standard field line view, we demonstrate the effectiveness of FlowGraph with several visual exploration and comparison tasks that cannot be well accomplished using the field line view alone. We also perform an empirical expert evaluation to confirm the usefulness of this graph-based technique.

One popular area of research in data visualization is using streamlines to display flow fields, which depict the movement of fluids through a space. Most of the research to date has focused on external visualizations; that is, observing flow fields from outside the boundaries of the data set (e.g., Tao et al. [2013]). This research explores the efficacy of visualizing flow fields internally using an algorithm we developed to automatically compute paths through flow field interiors that provide a high degree of useful information.

Visual exploration of large and complex 3D flow fields is critically important for understanding many aero- and hydro-dynamical systems that dominate various physical and natural phenomena in the world. In this paper, we introduce the FlowGraph, a novel compound graph representation that organizes streamline clusters and spatial regions hierarchically for occlusion-free and controllable visual exploration. Our approach works with any seeding strategies as long as the domain is well covered and important flow features are captured. By transforming a flow field to a graph representation, we enable observation and exploration of the relationships among streamline clusters, spatial regions and their interconnection in the transformed space. The FlowGraph not only provides a visual mapping that abstracts streamline clusters and spatial regions in various levels of detail, but also serves as a navigation tool that guides flow field exploration and understanding. Through brushing and linking in conjunction with the spatial streamline view, we demonstrate the effectiveness of FlowGraph with several visual exploration and comparison tasks that can not be well accomplished using the streamline view alone. As occlusion and clutter are almost ubiquitous in 3D flows, the FlowGraph represents a promising direction for enhancing our ability to understand large and complex flow field data.

We treat streamline selection and viewpoint selection as symmetric problems which are formulated into a unified information-theoretic framework. This is achieved by building two interrelated information channels between a pool of candidate streamlines and a set of sample viewpoints. We define the streamline information to select best streamlines and in a similar manner, define the viewpoint information to select best viewpoints. Furthermore, we propose solutions to streamline clustering and viewpoint partitioning based on the representativeness of streamlines and viewpoints, respectively. Finally, we define a camera path that passes through all selected viewpoints for automatic flow field exploration. We demonstrate the robustness of our approach by showing experimental results with different flow data sets, and conducting rigorous comparisons between our algorithm and other seed placement or streamline selection algorithms based on information theory.

This paper describes a visualization tool ECvisual that helps students understand and instructors teach elliptic curve based ciphers. This tool permits the user to visualize elliptic curves over the real field and over a finite field of prime order, perform arithmetic operations, do encryption and decryption, and convert plaintext to a point on an elliptic curve. The demo mode of ECvisual can be used for classroom presentation and self-study. With the practice mode, the user may go through steps in finite field computations, encryption, decryption and plaintext conversion. The user may compute the output for each operation check each answer for correctness. This helps students understand the primitive operations and how they are used in an elliptic curve cipher. The opportunity for self-study provides an instructor greater flexibility in selecting a lecture pace for this detail-filled material. Classroom evaluation was positive and very encouraging.