Animated Diagrams Research Articles

MFsim\u2014an open Java all-in-one rich-client simulation environment for mesoscopic simulation

MFsim is an open Java all-in-one rich-client computing environment for mesoscopic simulation with Jdpd as its default simulation kernel for Molecular Fragment (Dissipative Particle) Dynamics. The new environment comprises the complete preparation-simulation–evaluation triad of a mesoscopic simulation task and especially enables biomolecular simulation tasks with peptides and proteins. Productive highlights are a SPICES molecular structure editor, a PDB-to-SPICES parser for particle-based peptide/protein representations, a support of polymer definitions, a compartment editor for complex simulation box start configurations, interactive and flexible simulation box views including analytics, simulation movie generation or animated diagrams. As an open project, MFsim allows for customized extensions for different fields of research.

Designing an educational tool to revitalise woven textile mending

Purpose Because of advances in woollen woven textile manufacture, the occurrence of industrial textile mending has diminished. While the demand for the skill is still present in certain settings, the availability of learning resources is limited relating to this particular craft. The purpose of this paper is to design and produce an effective educational learning tool to teach mending skills. Design/methodology/approach To address the aims of this dissertation project, bricolage methodology and qualitative research methods have been used. Using the findings from primary and secondary research, the educational, instructional video was developed to document and display the mending craft practice in a format that would endure and be accessible to anybody who wished to learn. After determining that the ability to understand woven pattern structures was key in learning mending skill, the visual tool was developed using two-dimensional woven structure diagrams and animations to train pattern comprehension and recognition. Findings The results of educational video tool testing confirmed that using two-dimensional animated diagrams of woven structures was an effective method to teach pattern comprehension. Also, it was found that the trainee’s participation in the instructional video was effective in helping to teach other learners mending skills. The structure of the educational video made the learning more organised and comprehensible, as it assisted in the learning process through the combined media that reiterated the same information in different formats. Originality/value Design technology was applied to provide a comprehensible educational resource that could be used to learn and revitalise mending skills. The principles and methods applied in this resource could be adapted to teach different textile disciplines or other craft practices.

A Taxonomy and Survey of Dynamic Graph Visualization

AbstractDynamic graph visualization focuses on the challenge of representing the evolution of relationships between entities in readable, scalable and effective diagrams. This work surveys the growing number of approaches in this discipline. We derive a hierarchical taxonomy of techniques by systematically categorizing and tagging publications. While static graph visualizations are often divided into node‐link and matrix representations, we identify the representation of time as the major distinguishing feature for dynamic graph visualizations: either graphs are represented as animated diagrams or as static charts based on a timeline. Evaluations of animated approaches focus on dynamic stability for preserving the viewer's mental map or, in general, compare animated diagrams to timeline‐based ones. A bibliographic analysis provides insights into the organization and development of the field and its community. Finally, we identify and discuss challenges for future research. We also provide feedback from experts, collected with a questionnaire, which gives a broad perspective of these challenges and the current state of the field.

NetworkPainter: dynamic intracellular pathway animation in Cytobank.

BackgroundHigh-throughput technologies such as flow and mass cytometry have the potential to illuminate cellular networks. However, analyzing the data produced by these technologies is challenging. Visualization is needed to help researchers explore this data.ResultsWe developed a web-based software program, NetworkPainter, to enable researchers to analyze dynamic cytometry data in the context of pathway diagrams. NetworkPainter provides researchers a graphical interface to draw and “paint” pathway diagrams with experimental data, producing animated diagrams which display the activity of each network node at each time point.ConclusionNetworkPainter enables researchers to more fully explore multi-parameter, dynamical cytometry data.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12859-015-0602-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Verification of Dual Factors theory with eye movements during a matchstick arithmetic insight problem

Representational Change Theory claims that participants form inappropriate representations at the beginning of the insight problem solving process and that these initial representations must be transformed to discover the solution (Knoblich, Ohlsson, Haider, & Rhenius, 1999; Knoblich, Ohlsson, & Raney, 2001; Ohlsson, 1992). The theory also claims that all participants are trapped by inappropriate representations, regardless of the result, but it is easier for successful participants to transform their initial representations. However, the transformation of representations is not the only critical factor. This study investigates the hypothesis that the process of fixedness averting plays an important role in insight problem solving and is helpful for representational change. To verify the influence of fixedness averting on representational change processes, matchstick arithmetic problems were employed as an experimental model. In experiment 1, insight problem solving results could be predicted within the first third of the duration of the task. The gaze duration in the fixation region of successful participants was shorter than the gaze duration of unsuccessful participants. In experiment 2, participants’ foci of attention were experimentally manipulated by presenting different animated diagrams to guide their attention. We found that the rate of correct responses was significantly reduced when participants’ attention was guided to the fixation region. Representational Change Theory declares that changing inappropriate initial representations is necessary for solving insight problems. The present study demonstrates that in addition to representational change, fixedness averting is also crucial to problem solving.

The Animated Text: Definition

THE AIM OF THIS ARTICLE IS TO CONSTRUCT a theoretical definition for animation, a definition that can be used as a basis for further study of the field. Why is such a definition necessary? Why should animation be considered a separate category in academic research? Animation holds an ever-growing place in the media, especially with the emergence of new mediaexamples include the employment of computergenerated imagery in live-action films, the use of animated diagrams and game characters by computer software, and the animation of the traditional newspaper comic strip in Its Internet incarnation. One byproduct of this process is that the status of animation in the vocabulary of the media world becomes less and less clear; it becomes difficult to separate animation from other forms of media as it becomes more embedded within those forms. This embedment is not a new phenomenon; it accompanied animation long before the appearance of new media? as evidenced by the fact that for a long time, animation theoretical discussions were mostly part of general film theory, despite the fact that animation and cinema (as argued and demonstrated further in this article) are actually two separate fields. Animation scholar Alan Cholodenko has argued that animation should not be discussed as a subfield of film because it is actually the other way around? every film is "animated" in the sense that live-action films animate "still images called 'photographs'" (212-13). However, it is the position of this article that defining animation as a separate entity? one that is also different from the live-action filmis necessary. The necessity of performing such separation when examining a media text stems from the fact that the relationship between animation and the reality on which it comments are different from other such relationships in the media. For example, in 1999, the BBC documentary show Walking with Dinosaurs came under criticism for its use of computergenerated imagery to portray realistic-looking dinosaurs in what was classified as a scientific documentary? especially the producers' claim of "accurate vision of paleontology" for what was, in essence, scientific speculation (van Dijck 6-7, 12-15). This example demonstrates the current status of animation in the media world, a status that gradually increases with the constant improvement of technology: animation is a leading tool for blurring the distinction between reality and representation, often through its blending into other forms of media. The ability to distinguish animation from the other forms of media, therefore, is a necessary skill for the twenty-first-century media reader. Animation as Text That animation is a genre is a common misconception. A genre, as demonstrated by Arthur Asa Berger in his book Popular Culture Genres, is a set of content and style conventions common to a group of texts that readers come to expect when approaching a text ofthat group (29-43). Animation spreads across a wide variety of contents and styles. One source of confusion that leads to the treatment of animation as a genre is the term "cartoon" that is often applied to animation. "Cartoon" is indeed a genre, defined by Terranee Lindvall and Matthew Melton as comic animation (203-04). The cartoon genre played an important role in shaping the early stages of American cinematic animation, and as a result, it shaped the common perception of animation; however, it is by no means the only genre In animation. The development of early animation outside the United States often took a very different direction from the comic attributes of the cartoon genre, in both content and style. Produced between the 1920s and 40s, German animator Lotte Reinigers cutout films were adaptations of fairy tales and musical pieces with a general atmosphere of seriousness. These films had comic moments, but comedy was not their focus. In fact, the same can be said about the transition of the American animation industry from short films to features. …

Visualizing Causal Semantics Using Animations

Michotte's theory of ampliation suggests that causal relationships are perceived by objects animated under appropriate spatiotemporal conditions. We extend the theory of ampliation and propose that the immediate perception of complex causal relations is also dependent on a set of structural and temporal rules. We designed animated representations, based on Michotte's rules, for showing complex causal relationships or causal semantics. In this paper we describe a set of animations for showing semantics such as causal amplification, causal strength, causal dampening, and causal multiplicity. In a two part study we compared the effectiveness of both the static and animated representations. The first study (N=44) asked participants to recall passages that were previously displayed using both types of representations. Participants were 8% more accurate in recalling causal semantics when they were presented using animations instead of static graphs. In the second study (N=112) we evaluated the intuitiveness of the representations. Our results showed that while users were as accurate with the static graphs as with the animations, they were 9% faster in matching the correct causal statements in the animated condition. Overall our results show that animated diagrams that are designed based on perceptual rules such as those proposed by Michotte have the potential to facilitate comprehension of complex causal relations.

The Roles of Mental Animations and External Animations in Understanding Mechanical Systems

The effects of computer animations and mental animation on people's mental models of a mechanical system are examined. In 3 experiments, students learned how a mechanical system works from various instructional treatments including viewing a static diagram of the machine, predicting motion from static diagrams, viewing computer animations, and viewing static and animated diagrams accompanied by verbal commentaries. Although students' understanding of the system was improved by viewing both static and animated diagrams, there was no evidence that animated diagrams led to superior understanding of dynamic processes compared to static diagrams. Comprehension of diagrams was enhanced by asking students questions that required them to predict the behavior of the machine from static diagrams and by providing them with a verbal description of the dynamic processes. This article proposes that predicting motion from static diagrams engages students' mental animation processes, including spatial visualization, and provides them with information about what they do and do not understand about how the machine works. Verbal instruction provides information that is not easily communicated in graphics and directs students' attention to the relevant information in static and animated diagrams. The research suggests that an understanding of students' mental animation abilities is an important component of a theory of learning from external animations.

The use of diagrams in analogical problem solving.

In four experiments, we examined the impact of perceptual properties on the effectiveness of diagrams in analogical problem solving, using variants of convergence diagrams as source analogues for the radiation problem. Static diagrams representing the initial problematic state (one large line directed at a target) and the final state for a convergence solution (multiple converging lines) were not accessed spontaneously but were often used successfully once a hint to consider the diagram had been provided. The inaccessibility of static diagrams was not alleviated by adding additional diagrams to represent intermediate states (Experiment 1), but spontaneous access was improved by augmenting static diagrams with a verbal statement of the convergence principle (Experiment 3). Spontaneous retrieval and noticing were increased markedly by animating displays representing converging forces and thereby encouraging encoding of the lines as indicating motion toward a target (Experiments 3 and 4). However, neither static nor animated diagrams were effective when the arrows were reversed to imply divergence rather than convergence (Experiment 2). The results indicate that when animation encourages the interpretation of a diagram as a helpful source analogue, it can greatly enhance analogical transfer.

Vicarious learning from dialogue and discourse

This study examined learning in the domain of sentence parsing and syntax treediagram construction. The aim of the study was to assess whether subjects could learn ‘vicariously’ from recordings of interactions between a previous student and a tutor. Four intervention conditions and a control condition were compared. Subjects in a ‘dialogue’ group (DL) read printed tutorial notes and subsequently ‘vicariously” viewed dynamic (animated) recordings of tree diagrams being constructed by a previous student in the presence of a tutor. The discourse (DI) condition was similar except that subjects viewed recordings of tree diagrams being constructed by a tutor who concurrently verbalised instructional discourse. In a third condition (DO), subjects viewed tree-diagram construction animation clips which were not annotated with either dialogue or discourse. In a linear text (LT) condition, subjects were given only printed tutorial notes. A control (CO) condition involved pre and post testing without any intervention. Results indicated that the dialogue condition was as effective as the discourse condition. This provides support for contention that ‘re-usable’ dialogue is a useful resource for the vicarious learner. Another finding was that un-annotated animated diagrams were surprisingly effective. Several reasons for their effectiveness are suggested from the literature on instructional animations.

An interactive multimedia solution to learning removable partial denture design.

Surveys of the dental profession and dental laboratories show that up to 60% of cases received by laboratories have little or no input from dentists into the design of their patients' removable partial dentures (RPD). Thus, there is a clear mandate for dental schools to teach RPD design in new ways that will give their students confidence and allow their graduates to approach the task readily and easily. This computer-aided learning program addresses that need. In designing it, we have exploited the unique properties of computers as a learning tool. The program uses Quicktime VR to simulate a three-dimensional perspective of diagnostic casts. It is also possible to incorporate animated diagrams to illustrate various points. Control of timed answers promotes the use of inquiry-based learning and allows the program to be interactive and completely problem-oriented. Students can practice at their own pace, on a variety of virtual cases, and thus learn the craft behind the art of designing RPDs. With this foundation, discussions with experts in the field regarding the patients they treat in senior years and as graduates can be conducted at a higher and more productive level. Student evaluation so far has been very encouraging.

Inkwell

Inkwell, an experimental 2 1/2-D keyframe animation system, is the subject of this paper. Inkwell provides an intuitive user interface for creating and animating polygons, ellipses and splines. These primitives may be outlined and filled with a variety of patterns to create animated diagrams, graphs and charts, and simple characters and cartoons. Inkwell also has a patch primitive that facilitates deformation and animation of textured regions. The system provides editing features that include shape and timing control as well as digital filtering of parameters. Finally, Inkwell has deformation primitives that enable an animator to warp geometry in an intuitive manner. Inkwell was used to produce Pigment Promenade , a computer animated short shown at SIGGRAPH 1990.

Visual aids

A beautifully clear description of the phenomenon of polarisation is given in the newly revised version of the film Light Control Through Polarisation, which runs for 22 minutes. The film, in colour, starts with a brief look at the properties of light and shows the splitting of white light into its component colours by refraction through a prism. This is followed by animated diagrams which explain the use of polarising filters.

Corrosion in Action

A film called ‘Corrosion in Action,’ made by The International Nickel Co. Inc., American associates of The Mond Nickel Co. Ltd., stresses the need for understanding and controlling corrosion. The film is in three parts and runs for just over an hour. By example and analogy, involving the use of animated diagrams as well as photography, it is able to drive its points home in a way that a mere written explanation, however good, cannot. However, a brief summary of the main points discussed, in combination with some of the actual shots from the film, may recapture some of the film's force and clarity and help to spread knowledge of basic corrosion principles.

"SURGICAL MOTION PICTURES"

<h3>To the Editor:</h3> —The reason surgical motion pictures are not more used is that they are not properly made, and in my opinion the reason they are not produced in a workmanlike manner and have thus fallen into innocuous desuetude is that they are not adequately paid for in the making. There is no better method today of showing surgical technic to a large audience than by motion pictures when accompanied by animated diagrams prepared by a competent artist, as were put out during the war by the late Col. W. O. Owen, Paul Terry of Æsop fable fame, Col. L. H. Jones, myself, and many others. Talking motion pictures of surgical operations —and they may be easily colored ones as well—such as were shown last spring by Gaumont in Paris are here to stay, and the earlier the Committee on Scientific Exhibit of the American Medical Association gets hold