Interactive Scientific Visualization Research Articles

Molecumentary: Adaptable Narrated Documentaries Using Molecular Visualization.

We present a method for producing documentary-style content using real-time scientific visualization. We introduce molecumentaries, i.e., molecular documentaries featuring structural models from molecular biology, created through adaptable methods instead of the rigid traditional production pipeline. Our work is motivated by the rapid evolution of scientific visualization and it potential in science dissemination. Without some form of explanation or guidance, however, novices and lay-persons often find it difficult to gain insights from the visualization itself. We integrate such knowledge using the verbal channel and provide it along an engaging visual presentation. To realize the synthesis of a molecumentary, we provide technical solutions along two major production steps: (1) preparing a story structure and (2) turning the story into a concrete narrative. In the first step, we compile information about the model from heterogeneous sources into a story graph. We combine local knowledge with external sources to complete the story graph and enrich the final result. In the second step, we synthesize a narrative, i.e., story elements presented in sequence, using the story graph. We then traverse the story graph and generate a virtual tour, using automated camera and visualization transitions. We turn texts written by domain experts into verbal representations using text-to-speech functionality and provide them as a commentary. Using the described framework, we synthesize fly-throughs with descriptions: automatic ones that mimic a manually authored documentary or semi-automatic ones which guide the documentary narrative solely through curated textual input.

Advancing Nursing Research Through Interactive Data Visualization With R Shiny.

Scientific data visualization is a critical aspect of fully understanding data patterns and trends. To date, the majority of data visualizations in nursing research - as with other biomedical fields - have been static. The availability of electronic scientific journal articles (which are quickly becoming the norm) has created new opportunities for dynamic and interactive data visualization which carry added cognitive benefits and support the ability to understand data more fully. Therefore, here we highlight the benefits of R, an open-source programming language, for scientific data visualization, with a specific focus on creating dynamic, interactive figures using the R shiny package. For R users, we have included a tutorial with example code to create three increasingly complex shiny applications. For individuals more interested in understanding the potential of R shiny as an innovative tool to interact with research data, we have included links to online versions of the examples that do not require any programming or R experience. We believe that widespread adoption of dynamic and interactive scientific data visualization will further support nurse scientists' higher-level mission of advancing our understanding of health and wellness of individuals and communities.

Narrative Scientific Data Visualization in an Immersive Environment.

Narrative visualization for scientific data explorations can help users better understand the domain knowledge, because narrative visualizations often present a sequence of facts and observations linked together by a unifying theme or argument. Narrative visualization in immersive environments can provide users with an intuitive experience to interactively explore the scientific data, because immersive environments provide a brand new strategy for interactive scientific data visualization and exploration. However, it is challenging to develop narrative scientific visualization in immersive environments. In this paper, we propose an immersive narrative visualization tool to create and customize scientific data explorations for ordinary users with little knowledge about programming on scientific visualization, They are allowed to define POIs (point of interests) conveniently by the handler of an immersive device. Automatic exploration animations with narrative annotations can be generated by the gradual transitions between consecutive POI pairs. Besides, interactive slicing can be also controlled by device handler. Evaluations including user study and case study are designed and conducted to show the usability and effectiveness of the proposed tool. Related information can be accessed at: https://dabigtou.github.io/richenliu/.

Modulight: A Framework for Efficient Dynamic Interactive Scientific Visualization

The interactive scientific visualization applications are based on heterogeneous codes to implement simulation or data processing, visualization and interaction parts. These different parts need to be precisely assembled to construct an efficient application running in interactive time. Component-based approach is a good paradigm to express this kind of applications. The interactive scientific visualization domain is now classically extended with visual analysis applications. In this case, some parts of the application need to be added or removed dynamically during its execution. In this paper, we describe a component-based approach dedicated to dynamic interactive scientific visualization applications. We propose a framework called Modulight which implements our approach using the MPI2 library and the optimized socket library ØMQ. The performance of this framework is also analyzed from a real-life application of molecular dynamics.

Visualizing a Journal that Serves the Computational Sciences Community

Let's face it: The printed journal format that has served the scientific research community satisfactorily for more than 200 years doesn't serve the computational sciences community well at all. The community should, instead, communicate and archive the results of its research endeavors through a venue that lets students and colleagues fully examine published computational results and critique the numerical algorithms the authors used to generate them. A suitable computational sciences journal must principally reside in the digital rather than hardcopy world and, we propose, should consist of an interactive scientific visualization tool that is fully embedded within a versatile Wiki. The basic framework for such a journal already exists within the open source community. As we show here, for example, the SCI Institute's VisTrails Wiki (www.vistrails.org) provides many features that would be desirable in an interactive, visual, and archival computational sciences journal. It's impossible to effectively illustrate the advantages of an interactive, visual, and archival journal (IVAJ) over a traditional journal through a CiSE Visualization Corner article, which itself is intended principally to appear in print. Hence, to fully engage in this discussion, we encourage readers to interact with an article that we've posted in a proposed IVAJ format. We provide instructions for that interaction here; you can also find an abbreviated set of instructions at www.vistrails.org/index.php/ UserTbhline/IVAJ. Another useful reference is our May/June 2009 Visualization Corner article.1 Here we demonstrate how an IVAJ can help that published article's printed pages come alive and can considerably expand on its basic scientific content.

Interactive Scientific Visualization Using Parallel Redundant Prediction Method.

In this study, an interactive scientific visualization environment was constructed by directly connecting the five-screen immersive projection display CABIN with an IBM SP2 parallel super-computer through the FDDI network. In this environment, numerical simulation can be executed interactively according to the user's motion and the result of the calculation can be visualized in real-time. In particular, a parallel redundand prediction method using the parallel computer was developed to realize a real-time numerical simulation. This method was applied to the deformation analysis of the rubber using the non-linear finite element method, and the interactive visualization according to the user's push action was performed. By using this visualization, the performances of accuracy and calculation time were experimentally evaluated.

Interactive Scientific Visualization in Virtual Environment.

This paper discusses the interactive scientific visualization method which can represent the dynamic phenomena according to the user's action. The immersive multi-screen display CABIN and the parallel supercomputer IBM SP 2 were connected via the FDDI high-speed network to construct the interactive visualization environment. By using this system, two kinds of visualization methods, the realtime numerical simulation and the visualization using data set, were implemented. The calculation performance and the effectiveness of the interactive visualization methods were experimentally tested and evaluated. From these results, the interactive visualization is though to be very effective to understand the scientific numerical data intuitively.

Distributed computing: new power for scientific visualization

Distributed computing provides unique benefits for scientific visualization in this system (Discover) that supports interactive visualization and cooperative work for nonprogrammers. Discover (Distributed Interactive Scientific Computing and Visualization Environment), is suitable for many areas, but we have concentrated on medical image analysis and generation-one of the the most rapidly growing applications for scientific visualization. In its present form, Discover acts as a framework for clinical applications. True to its name, it allows a variety of users to discover the relevant information in a vast body of scientific data. Nonprogrammers, such as physicians and radiologists, interactively display and manipulate the two and three dimensional medical objects, visualize the results, control system computation, and generally drive the image analysis process. The emphasis is on the distributed nature of the software architecture and its functions. We also describe a unique load balancing algorithm designed to maximize workstation performance.

A distributed and interactive three-dimensional medical image system

Three-dimensional (3D) arrays of digital data representing spatial volumes arise in many scientific applications, such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) created by imaging a series of cross sections of human bodies in medical applications. In this article, a software system architecture, called DISCOVER (a Distributed Interactive Scientific Computing and Visualization EnviRonment), which can take advantage of the power of parallel processing, is proposed and implemented for interactive visualization and manipulation of the 3D digital data. The surface-rendering and the volume-rendering algorithms are implemented. The same software program can be executed on several different hardware platforms. We also propose a new rendering algorithm, called volume-surface rendering, for medical applications. The algorithm enables users to visualize the external and internal structures of medical objects simultaneously. The network version of the DISCOVER, as it stands today, is in practical use in the Hospital of National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan for real clinical applications.

Computer-human interface issues in the design of an intelligent workstation for scientific visualization

The long-range goal of our research is to create an intelligent assistant for interactive scientific data visualization via both sight and sound. There are a variety of computer-human interface (CHI) issues that are unique to our approach to interactive visualization. It is upon these issues that we focus here. In this paper, we: (1) describe the approach to interactive visualization taken by the project which is the context of our work; (2) specify the CHI issues that are peculiar to this approach; (3) summarize the current capabilities of our workstation for performing human factors experiments; (4) describe the research plan we have developed for learning how to provide a user with intelligent assistance for dealing with those issues; (5) present a representative pilot study that has contributed useful information; (6) summarize the results of our pilot studies; and (7) discuss the direction of our future work. We do not claim to be solving the general case of how to provide intelligent assistance for scientific visualization. We do, however, expect that the progress we make in one visualization environment will contribute to understanding of the general case.

The Intel i860 64-bit processor: a general-purpose CPU with 3D graphics capabilities

A description is given of the Intel i860 processor, which was designed for use in low-cost 3D graphics workstations. These products need high performance to support the operating system, simulations, transforms, and shading calculations. The integer unit provides high performance for Unix and other operating systems, the floating-point unit provides high throughput for computationally intensive applications and the processor includes 3D graphics hardware. The sustained high computation rates are supported by on-chip caches. The processor is supported by compilers and other development tools. The i860 processor will enable cost-effective interactive scientific visualization. This includes not only the numeric computation and 3D matrix transforms but also the pixel-intensive shading calculations that normally are either very costly or very slow. Integrating all these capabilities into one component allows design of a desktop unit or a single add-in card for existing personal computers.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The application visualization system: a computational environment for scientific visualization

A software system for developing interactive scientific visualization applications quickly, with a minimum of programming effort, is described. This application visualization system (AVS) is an application framework targeted at scientists and engineers. The goal of the system is to make applications that combine interactive graphics and high computational requirements easier to develop for both programmers and nonprogrammers. AVS is designed around the concept of software building blocks, or modules, which can be interconnected to form visualization applications. AVS allows flow networks of existing modules to be constructed using a direct-manipulation user interface, and it automatically generates a simple user interface to each module. >