The objective of Phase I: identify and develop innovative methods for portraying information for decision makers so that data uncertainty and content are readily understood. The specific objectives of the proposed effort are: 1. Review the present practice of visualizing uncertainty in battlefield data; 2. Examine the use of various visualization methods, as discussed in Section 1, for various uncertainty and ignorance types as defined in Figure 2; 3. Develop methods for visualizing uncertainty based on our ignorance hierarchy; 4. Incorporate our risk management process in the development of these methods; 5. Define, format, and collect the data needed to support these methods; 6. Demonstrate the effectiveness of the methods, especially concerning improvement in the ability to make more appropriate (right or correct) decisions; 7. Develop a plan for Phase II of the SBIR effort in the form of prototype products with a high potential for successful commercialization. We will develop innovative methods for portraying information for decision makers, so that data uncertainty and content are readily understood, based on our unique hierarchy of ignorance. The visualization developed visualization methods will satisfy the following principles: (1) apprehension, (2) clarity, (3) consistency, (4) efficiency, (5) necessity, and (6) truthfulness. The following icon attributes can be used to communicate information about uncertainty and ignorance: (1) form, (2) orientation, (3) color, (4) texture, (5) value, (6) size, (7) position, (8) motion, (9) intensity, (10) shading, and (11) special effects, such blinking, animation, etc. We will further develop our unique Ignoriconsc, and perform the following tasks: (1) Define the types of ignorance and uncertainty; (2) Identify visualization requirements for battlefields; (3) Develop visualization methods; (4) Incorporate our risk mitigation tools in developing the methods; (5) Development a variety of Ignoriconsc; (6) Define data needed to select and format Ignoricons; (7) Demonstrate models; and (8) Develop a plan for Phase II of the SBIR.
