PhD These : 4D Navigation
The 4D browser project (3D + time) intends to develop, within the framework of a doctoral thesis, the first prototype of a four-dimensional web browser, allowing contextual access to historical sources.
It is positioned in the continuity of the research carried out at DHLAB in particular:
* The SNSF ScanVan project (2016-2021), which carried out a model of the city of Sion in the form of point clouds and developed a web interface to explore it in relation to the cadastral structure of the city.
* The SNSF project Parcels of Venice (2019-2023) which historically models the city of Venice from cadastral plans, notably in the form of reverse procedural methods.
* The Cross Swiss Mobility project (2020-2021) which models and visualises the evolution of mobility in Switzerland over the last 15 years by combining the data collected during mobility surveys with data on the evolution of the territory and transport networks.
* The Venice Time Machine and Time Machine Europe projects, which define standards for navigation in historical sources and reconstruction and make progress towards the establishment of globally coordinated actions in these areas.
A 4D browser, capable of articulating different spatiotemporal data within a unified interactive web interface is still a missing piece of the puzzle under construction. Several fundamental questions still need to be studied in a theoretical and practical manner in order to build such an interface. These include the following:
* What forms of redocumentation and data standards should be used to align information about the present and the past? Are there pivotal concepts that allow continuous navigation through the different forms of documentation?
* What types of interactivity should be put in place to allow spatial and temporal fluidity, historical contextualisation of the sources used for the reconstructions and the visualisation of the different forms of uncertainties and inconsistencies attached to the historical reconstructions?
* What types of infrastructure and technology should be developed to enable continuous changes of scale in both spatial and temporal dimensions?
* What arrangements should be put in place to respect /by design/ Swiss and European legislation concerning sensitive personal data in this type of interface?
The aim of the thesis will be to provide a first set of answers to these questions through the practical construction of a prototype navigation engine, its deployment and evaluation in real conditions of use.
The prototype will be tested on data from four cities that have been partially modelled in recent years.
Doctoral School : EDDH
Starting date : April 2021
Contact: Prof. Frédéric Kaplan