Illustrative visualization techniques for hurricane advisory information

Abstract

We have developed new illustrative visualization techniques inspired by artistic brush strokes for graphically representing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Hurricane Center's (NHC) hurricane advisory statements. To address the complexity of the advisory information and the limitations of traditional map displays, our techniques offer enhanced representations that map advisory data attributes to the visual features in brush strokes. By condensing the information into a single, comprehensible image, our new representations avoid many perceptual issues that affect the perception and cognition of the current NHC graphical products. In the current work, we describe the motivation and algorithmic details of two variants of our approach: the small brush stroke and long brush stroke methods. We also present the results of applying our techniques to the representation of hurricane advisories from the 2005 season, which include those of the infamous Hurricane Katrina. The results highlight the promise of our illustrative visualization methods as an effective approach for the dispensation of this vital information.