International Society for Industrial Process Tomography

Interactive System for Spatial and Temporal ECT Data Investigation

D. Sielski¹, A. Nowak¹, M. Woźniak¹, J. Dominiak¹, A. Kowalska¹, P. Kucharski¹,
Z. Chaniecki^1, K. Grudzień¹ and A. Romanowski¹

¹Institute of Applied Computer Science, Lodz University of Technology, Lodz, Poland

^*Email: androm@iis.p.lodz.pl

ABSTRACT

A novel tool for process tomography data investigation is presented in this paper. The key features of the system support measurement data visualisation in aspect of spatial and temporal changes. The multi-touch surface-based computer application developed for ease of browsing, manipulating, examining and interpreting data in a form of raw measurement, tomograms and topograms acquired from ECT tomography measurement unit is demonstrated. User interface enables navigation through and intuitive interpretation of massive series of measurement records. The major advantage of the system is natural switching between time and space domains among flow concentration graphs of raw data and related reconstructed imaging data through plots, series of images and topograms. Moreover, the system is designed to be used both stationary and portably on-the-go; experts may use it while moving throughout flow facilities thanks to mobile tablet version. System was verified for scenarios built on ECT data captured from the pneumatic conveying flow as well as for gravitational flow in silos. The presented results, focused on user experience research, use cases for large multi-touch surface, medium size tilting display and tablet. Result show that experts reported increase of productivity due to reducing time of initial analysis of the data and decreased workload, assessed using standard Task Load Index procedure.

Keywords Data analysis, visualisation, flow investigation tool, ECT, user experience

Industrial Applicationchemical, food processing, bulk-solids based others