Abstract
We present Multiscale Unfolding, an interactive technique for illustratively visualizing multiple hierarchical scales of DNA in a single view, showing the genome at different scales and demonstrating how one scale spatially folds into the next. The DNA's extremely long sequential structure-arranged differently on several distinct scale levels-is often lost in traditional 3D depictions, mainly due to its multiple levels of dense spatial packing and the resulting occlusion. Furthermore, interactive exploration of this complex structure is cumbersome, requiring visibility management like cut-aways. In contrast to existing temporally controlled multiscale data exploration, we allow viewers to always see and interact with any of the involved scales. For this purpose we separate the depiction into constant-scale and scale transition zones. Constant-scale zones maintain a single-scale representation, while still linearly unfolding the DNA. Inspired by illustration, scale transition zones connect adjacent constant-scale zones via level unfolding, scaling, and transparency. We thus represent the spatial structure of the whole DNA macro-molecule, maintain its local organizational characteristics, linearize its higher-level organization, and use spatially controlled, understandable interpolation between neighboring scales. We also contribute interaction techniques that provide viewers with a coarse-to-fine control for navigating within our all-scales-in-one-view representations and visual aids to illustrate the size differences. Overall, Multiscale Unfolding allows viewers to grasp the DNA's structural composition from chromosomes to the atoms, with increasing levels of "unfoldedness," and can be applied in data-driven illustration and communication.
Highlights
E XPLORATION of 3D data is essential for all physical sciences, from the smallest phenomena in particle physics to the largest known structures in astrophysics
The visual representation shows a subset of the 3D dataset at a single spatial scale factor, and this scale factor can be changed interactively, i. e., over time
We introduce interaction techniques to navigate our new multiscale representation with spatially-controlled abstraction and relate our representations to temporally controlled multiscale visualizations
Summary
E XPLORATION of 3D data is essential for all physical sciences, from the smallest phenomena in particle physics to the largest known structures in astrophysics. This strategy has the benefit that it allows viewers to experience and explore the actual 3D spatial structure of the data. The visual representation of different scale configurations is shown at different locations in a single image Illustrators have used this strategy in the past to depict the. This paradigm has the advantage that it allows us to explain—in particular to non-experts and in general education—the inter-connectedness of the scales as well as (local examples of) their spatial configurations, all in one view. We take inspiration from static illustrations and present a framework that allows us to interactively create and explore spatially-controlled multiscale visualizations based on captured (HiC) and reconstructed [53] genome data (Fig. 1). We report on feedback from professional illustrators and domain experts, which indicates that our illustrative visualization facilitates understanding and communication between experts and laypeople
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