Generating Comics Narrative to Summarize Wearable Computer Data

Jason M. Alderman

jasonald at gmail
huah.net/grad

Masters Project in the Information Design and Technology Program
Department of Literature, Communication and Culture
Georgia Institute of Technology

Abstract

As people record their entire lives to disk, they need ways of summarizing and making sense of all of this data. Comics (and visual language) are a largely untapped medium for summarization, as they are already subtractive and abstract by nature (the brain fills in the blanks and the details), and they provide a way to present a series of everyday events as a memorable narrative that is easily skimmed. This research builds upon the work of Microsoft, FX Palo Alto Labs, ATR Labs, and others to further ground the procedural generation in the comics theory of Scott McCloud, et al.

Files

Design Document [PDF, 3.3MB, 91 pages]
Flash and PHP source code [ZIP, 123KB]

Further Resources

Latest 7 bookmarks from del.icio.us/jalderman/thesis:

Drawing Words & Writing Pictures - Home Page -
The site for Jessica Abel and Matt Madden's new textbook on making comics, with printable "homework" activities for each chapter, teacher's guides and more.

Substroke Design Dump
A "language for drawing dynamic (data-dependent) pictures." Appears to be a design document for a programming language with a comic strip syntax. Need to read up on this, but it seems similar to Mikael Kindborg's research.

VizThink - Are you a visual thinker?
A conference (SanFran, Jan 27-29, 2008) on "visual thinking" with ringleaders Scott McCloud and Robert Horn and a mighty host of others. This conference looks like a who's who of my literature review; if only I'd known about it earlier...

Madinkbeard » Systeme de la bande dessinee by Thierry Groensteen
A System of Comics, by Groensteen, has just recently been translated and published in the US (originally published in 1999 in France). Looks to be a wonderfully McCloudian analysis. How did he slip under the radar during the lit review?

Comics Should Be Good! » Jesse Hamm on “8 Things I’d Like to See More of in Comics”
Jesse generally has excellent things to say about the medium, and this case is no exception. (#3 and 4 are relevant to ye olde thesis.)

Big Time Attic: Cartooning Tips and Tricks: The 5 Purposes Of Panels
"[W]hen I think about panels, I like to think about what they accomplish instead of where you're looking from." Zander Cannon's comics panel taxonomy: Relative position, Emotion, Detail, Scale, Establishing shot.

See also thesis + log = slog [eventually: notes, errata, and new research in comics generation]