Hello! I am Sara.
I am a PhD student in Computer Science at Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern, Boston, specializing in Data Visualization, currently focusing on temporal event sequence visualization and network layout algorithms.

Scroll down to see an overview of my projects. The page contains my experiments with data visualization, 3d computer graphics, game development, machine learning, generative art, and my paintings.

I also like parrots.

Portfolio

# Sequence Braiding
Sequence Braiding

Sequence Braiding is a novel network visualization technique for temporal event sequences and attributes. It is a layered network layout algorithm for creating visualizations. Layer assignment is done using multiple sequence alignment by event type. Nodes within layers are ordered hierarchically first by attribute bins and then to minimize edge crossings. Edges are bundled and smoothly routed across layers. The algorithm is robust to arbitrary ordering, absence, and duplication of events.

# Shapeshifting timelines
Shapeshifting Timelines

Shapeshifting timelines is a study aimed at understanding what shape of timeline works best for different types of data.
Sparqling

SPARQLING is a system for visual SPARQL query building based on the GRAPHOL visual language for ontologies.

The characterizing feature of SPARQLING is the idea to preserve and take advantage of the native diagrammatic representation of G RAPHOL ontologies, allowing the user to navigate it, and to construct a graph-based representation of the query over it through a simple point-and-click mechanism. The system then automatically transforms the graphical query into the SPARQL syntax.
Related publications:

The SPARQLING system for SPARQL queries over GRAPHOL ontologies
Sara Di Bartolomeo, Gianluca Pepe, Valerio Santarelli, Domenico Fabio Savo
ISWC 2018, link to pdf

SPARQLING: Painlessly drawing SPARQL queries over GRAPHOL ontologies
Sara Di Bartolomeo, Gianluca Pepe, Valerio Santarelli, Domenico Fabio Savo
VOILA 2018, link to pdf
VR Audioscape

Project made during Google Summer of Code 2017 for The Processing Foundation.

VR Audioscape is a VR application made with Processing that lets the user travel through a procedural landscape generated according to music.
Play any music from any app on your phone, then run the app. It will automatically use as input any sound coming as output from the phone.
Get it on Google Play
Articles on Medium
[1] [2]
Persistence of Vision Display

We built a clock that displays a series of arcs representing the time by rotating very fast a single LED strip and giving the illusion that the clock is made by continuous arcs of light.

The LEDs are turned on and off with appropriate timing, so thanks to the principle of persistence of vision, the eye is under the impression that what it's seeing is not a strip of LEDs rotating, but a continuous beam.

This display was made for the 30th anniversary of Quasar Design University, Rome.

The clock represents the passing of time. Each arc of the clock represents a unit of time. In the course of a year, the clock slowly becomes empty, arc by arc, shutting down completely at the end of the year.
The POV display was made in collaboration with Bruno Laurencich
Map of Reddit

The Map of Reddit is an interactive graph intended for the discovery of new content of Reddit. It is the result of hierarchical clustering run using user contributions in different subreddit as a similarity measure.

I also had a public talk at Data Driven Innovation 2017 about the map of reddit and more related studies I did:

Clustering Reddit

Abstract:
In this talk, I explore how to use data obtained from Reddit to better understand how the community works by applying clustering algorithms and some simple text mining techniques to the comments and submissions.
More: graph centrality measures on Reddit

A rendering of a multi-material macbook with a C++ pathtracing rendering engine I did for a university project.

Skeletal animation

Cloth simulation

I am interested in rendering algorithms, the rendering pipeline and computer graphics in general.

Let there be light: introduction to GLSL

Introduction to GLSL is a workshop/talk I had at Linux Day 2017 about the popular shading language.

You Turing-Complete Me

You Turing-Complete me is a talk I did at Codemotion 2016, Campus Party 2017 and Google DevFest Bari 2017 about Turing Completeness in videogames.

Abstract:
Turing Completeness is a set of characteristics that makes any language able to be used to build a Turing machine, therefore to be used to write any program or define another programming language. Such characteristics are so simple that they can be found in unexpected places like videogames. "You Turing Complete Me" is a talk that explores weird Turing Complete places, including Pokémon and Minecraft.


Poopfest

Poopfest is a small experimental game with watercolour graphics. 2-4 players fight each other as birds. 1st prize for graphics and 2nd prize for gameplay at Global Game Jam Rome 2015.

Everything, from the background to the character animations, was handpainted, then digitalized.

Poopfest won the 1st prize for the graphics and the 2nd prize for gameplay at Global Game Jam Rome 2017.

Le Cicale

Le Cicale was a movie documentary about the old people of Rome that included watercolour animated sections.

Unfortunately, the project was never finished, but I like to show off my watercolors (:


Clicken!

An incremental game about having a barn.

Clicken got 6th prize in the overall category and 1st prize in the fun category in Ludum Dare 28.

Electric Tree

Electric tree is creative data visualization program, winner of the Cleanweb contest 2014.

Bonus: drawings

Posts

First month of GSoC is over!
A report. With awesome gifs.
I spent the first three weeks coding procedurally generated things in VR. I liked it. Take a look here.
Google Summer of Code with Processing update!
Getting into Google Summer of Code and/or Outreachy
A brief overview of the programs

Projects overview

Find more projects here!

VR Audioscape (August 2017)

#virtual_reality #processing #android #...
Project made during Google Summer of Code 2017 for The Processing Foundation.

VR Audioscape is a VR application made with Processing. It lets you travel through a procedural landscape generated according to music.
Play any music from any app on your phone, then run the app. It will automatically use as input any sound coming as output from the phone.

team: Me
Persistence of Vision Display (June 2017)

#art #arduino #display #...
We built a clock that displays a series of arcs representing the time by rotating very fast a single LED strip and giving the illusion that the clock is made by continuous arcs of light.
The LEDs are turned on and off with appropriate timing, so thanks to the principle of persistence of vision, the eye is under the impression that what it's seeing is not a strip of LEDs rotating, but a continuous beam.
This display was made for the 30th anniversary of Quasar Design University, Rome.

Click on the link to see a video of the display in action.

team: Me, Bruno Laurencich

Artworks overview

This is the art I make in my free time. You can see more here.