Visualization Purposes Research Articles

An Intelligent Programmed Genetic Algorithm with advanced deterministic diversity creating operator using objective surface visualization

This paper presents a new fast Intelligent Programmed Genetic Algorithm (IPGA) based evolutionary optimization algorithm which requires lesser number of objective function evaluation for reaching optima. The proposed algorithm, apart from using probabilistic genetic operator, i.e. crossover and mutation, also uses a deterministic diversity creating operator for generating new solution in the current population. This is done by first projecting objective surface from higher dimension to lower dimension for visualization purpose and then deterministically generates new solution using some predefined rules in the region with higher objective function value. As the newly generated solution is in lower-dimensional space, these solutions are again projected back to higher dimensional space and then the objective function is evaluated at that point. The proposed IPGA is tested on three different categories of standard test functions viz. Unimodal function (2 Test Function), Unrotated Multimodal function (6 Test Function) and Rotated Multimodal function (5 Test Function). Simulation results were compared with that obtained using Binary Coded GA, Real Coded GA, recently proposed GA with Differential Evolution crossover operator (GA–DEx) and another success-history-based adaptive GA with aging mechanism (GA–aDExSPS) in terms of mean and standard deviation of the objective function, average number of objective function evaluation required to reach optima and algorithmic complexity. Simulation results clearly demonstrate better performance of the proposed IPGA when compared with other variants of GAs.

ИЕРАРХИЯ ГРАДОСТРОИТЕЛЬНЫХ КОМПОЗИЦИЙ РАЗНОГО МАСШТАБА В СТРУКТУРЕ ИСТОРИЧЕСКОГО ЦЕНТРА САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГА

The article considers the urban planning structure of the historical center of St. Petersburg as a hierarchy of ensembles. Urban ensemble compositions in the study are systematized regardless of their scale. The introduction presents the main problems of perceiving the city center as a system of interconnected ensembles. A brief review of relevant studies, domestic and foreign, is offered addressing the problems of the compositional and spatial structure organization of the city. The plan of J.-B.-A. Leblon 1717 as an example of a holistic urban ensemble is analyzed. The features of the existing hierarchical relationships are traced through the example of one vertical connection: the composition of the historical center, the composition of the Admiralty-Moscow side, the composition of the Five Axes of the Admiralty, the composition of Nevsky Prospect, the composition of Kazan Cathedral. For visualization purposes, the text description is supplemented by a figure illustrating the nature of the hierarchical relationships of the compositions. A 5-level hierarchical model of the environment of the historical center of St. Petersburg is developed and presented in the form of a table with the scale frames of each of the levels. The characteristic of integrity is proposed as a justification for the grouping of ensembles by levels. The conclusions suggest the features of the hierarchy of urban planning composition of the historical center of St. Petersburg: multi-levelness, vertical interconnectedness, large ranges of scale, totality of distribution, uneven distribution, gradual historical development.

An experimental setup for creating and imaging 4He2 * excimer cluster tracers in superfluid helium-4 via neutron-3He absorption reaction.

For the purpose of future visualization of the flow field in superfluid helium-4, clusters of the triplet state excimer 4He2 * are generated along the micro-scale recoil tracks of the neutron-absorption reaction n + 3He → 3T + p. This reaction is induced by neutron irradiation of the 3He fraction contained in natural isotopic abundance liquid helium with neutron beams either from the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex, Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (JPARC)/Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility or from the Kyoto University Institute for Integrated Radiation and Nuclear Science. These 4He2 * clusters are expected to be ideal tracers of the normal-fluid component in superfluid helium with several advantageous properties. Evidence of the excimer generation is inferred by detection of laser induced fluorescence emitted from the 4He2 * clusters excited by a purpose-built short pulse gain-switched titanium:sapphire (Ti:sa) laser operating at a wavelength of 905 nm. The setup and performance characteristics of the laser system including the Ti:sa and two continuous wave re-pumping lasers are described. Detection at the fluorescence wavelength of 640 nm is performed by using optical bandpass filtered photomultiplier tubes (PMT). Electrical noise in the PMT acquisition traces could successfully be suppressed by post-processing with a simple algorithm. Despite other laser-related backgrounds, the excimer was clearly identified by its fluorescence decay characteristics. Production of the excimer was found to be proportional to the neutron flux, adjusted via insertion of different collimators into the neutron beam. These observations suggest that the apparatus we constructed does function in the expected manner and, therefore, has the potential for groundbreaking turbulence research with superfluid helium.

Robust and sparse multigroup classification by the optimal scoring approach

We propose a robust and sparse classification method based on the optimal scoring approach. It is also applicable if the number of variables exceeds the number of observations. The data are first projected into a low dimensional subspace according to an optimal scoring criterion. The projection only includes a subset of the original variables (sparse modeling) and is not distorted by outliers (robust modeling). In this low dimensional subspace classification is performed by minimizing a robust Mahalanobis distance to the group centers. The low dimensional representation of the data is also useful for visualization purposes. We discuss the algorithm for the proposed method in detail. A simulation study illustrates the properties of robust and sparse classification by optimal scoring compared to the non-robust and/or non-sparse alternative methods. Three real data applications are given.

Counting the Number of Active Spermatozoa Movements Using Improvement Adaptive Background Learning Algorithm

The most important early stage in sperm infertility research is the detection of sperm objects. The success rate in separating sperm objects from semen fluid has an important role for further analysis. This research performed the detection and calculation of human spermatozoa. The detected sperm was the moving sperm in the video data. An improvement of Adaptive Background Learning was applied to detect the moving sperm. The purpose of this method is to improve the performance of Adaptive Background Learning algorithm in background subtraction process to detect and calculate moving sperm on the microscopic video of sperm fluid. This paper also compared several other background subtraction algorithms to conclude the appropriate background subtraction algorithm for sperm detection and sperm counting. The process done in this research was preprocessing using the Gaussian filter. The next was background subtraction process, followed by morphology operation. To test or validate the detection results of any background subtraction algorithm used, the foreground mask results from the morphological operation were compared to the ground truth of moving sperm image. For visualization purposes, every BLOB area (white object in binary image) on the foreground were given a bounding box to the original frame and the number of BLOB objects present in the foreground mask were counted. This shows that the system had been able to detect and calculate moving sperm. Based on the test results, Adaptive Background Learning method had a value of F-measure of 0.9205 and succeeded in extracting sperm shape close to the original form compared to other methods.

Appearance-driven conversion of polygon soup building models with level of detail control for 3D geospatial applications

In many 3D applications, building models in polygon-soup representation are commonly used for the purposes of visualization, for example, in movies and games. Their appearances are fine, however geometry-wise, they may have limited information of connectivity and may have internal intersections between their parts. Therefore, they are not well-suited to be directly used in 3D geospatial applications, which usually require geometric analysis. For an input building model in polygon-soup representation, we propose a novel appearance-driven approach to interactively convert it to a two-manifold model, which is more well-suited for 3D geospatial applications. In addition, the level of detail (LOD) can be controlled interactively during the conversion. Because a model in polygon-soup representation is not well-suited for geometric analysis, the main idea of the proposed method is extracting the visual appearance of the input building model and utilizing it to facilitate the conversion and LODs generation. The silhouettes are extracted and used to identify the features of the building. After this, according to the locations of these features, horizontal cross-sections are generated. We then connect two adjacent horizontal cross-sections to reconstruct the building. We control the LOD by processing the features on the silhouettes and horizontal cross-sections using a 2D approach. We also propose facilitating the conversion and LOD control by integrating a variety of rasterization methods. The results of our experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.

Sequential decision-making in mining and processing based on geometallurgical inputs

Geometallurgy as a multi-disciplinary field has been applied at various levels in different operations. By linking the ore performance in mineral beneficiation processes to the ore block model, it supports estimating the value of a block before it is mined. Efforts in the classification of the ore into geometallurgical classes have led to a better understanding of the entire value chain. While classification provides a convenient tool for forecasting and visualization purposes, it simplifies the actual complexity of an ore body. In mining and process planning, sequential decisions are made to maximize an objective function or equivalently minimize a regret function. Using available information from geology or metallurgical test work, an optimal strategy can be found using tools from the machine learning community.In this study, a framework based on machine learning to maximize the use of such classifications for sequential decision-making is proposed. The concepts of reinforcement learning and bandit algorithms, offer powerful tools to explore and exploit different optimization strategies. In certain cases, theoretical guarantees about the performance of given methods can be obtained by regret bounds.Based on existing models of a porphyry copper deposit and an iron ore deposit, this study presents a methodology and different available algorithms to maximize an objective function that depends on a high number of variables and in the presence of noise or uncertainty in the models. Different numerical experiments provide a basis for discussion and comparison to human decisions. The hypotheses relative to each algorithm are discussed in relation to the mineral processing models.

Digital geoTwin Vienna: Towards a Digital Twin City as Geodata Hub

Virtual 3D city models usually evolved from other geodata sets and were not set up from scratch. As traditional geodata used to be only 2D and 2.5D for a long time, 3D city models started naturally with 3D building models. On the one hand, this has a technical aspect, because buildings, especially when being modelled in a higher level of detail, can neither be described in 2D nor in 2.5D. On the other hand, this is because buildings form the identity of a city. This can clearly be seen when looking at the sights of a city, which are usually historic or modern buildings, such as cathedrals, palaces, skyscrapers, etc. In many cases, the 3D building models themselves were called 3D city model, because they are so essential for a virtual 3D city. A common way to create a 3D city model beyond the buildings is to combine them with 2D (i.e. city map) and 2.5D (i.e. digital terrain model) GIS data sets. In case the models are used for visualization purposes only, the city map is normally used in a raster format as texture on the terrain model. In case semantic 3D models are aimed for in order to use them for analysis, 2D city map vector data are raised, e.g. to a terrain model or a 3D point cloud. Continuative steps to enrich the virtual scene are often adding 3D bridge models or vegetation created by a set of template tree models and point-based tree information with height and tree top diameter as attributes to the point information. Problems usually occur due to temporal incoherence of the data sets. While for visualization purposes, these problems might be neglectable, they have to be tackled in case the resulting 3D city model should serve as basis for a city information model. In this paper, we want to discuss a new strategy in producing the 3D city model as well as other geodata products of Vienna which completely rethinks and reverses the geodata workflows currently in use. The centre of the strategy is to use the existing three-dimensional surveying and mapping data and potentially further input data to directly model a Digital geoTwin—a virtual, semantic 3D replica of all elements and objects of the city. Digital twins are an upcoming concept of digitizing elements, processes and systems of physical entities in order to create living digital simulation models as collaborative platform for many disciplines. We chose to add the prefix geo to our neologism Digital geoTwin to emphasize our focus on the geodetic, geometric aspect of creating semantic geo-objects for a digital twin. This Digital geoTwin should allow to derive other needed GIS data sets from it, which in corollary ensure full temporal coherence for all derived products. By linking the objects of the Digital geoTwin with further data and information, e.g. census data, socio economic data, energy consumption data, maintenance management data, etc., a city information model can be built up to serve as basis for a living digital twin of Vienna.

Principal component analysis of financial statements. A compositional approach

Financial ratios are often used in principal component analysis and related techniques for the purposes of data reduction and visualization. Besides the dependence of results on ratio choice, ratios themselves pose a number of problems when subjected to a principal component analysis, such as skewed distributions. In this work, we put forward an alternative method drawn from compositional data analysis (CoDa), a standard statistical toolbox for use when data convey information about relative magnitudes, as financial ratios do. The method, referred to as the CoDa biplot, does not rely on any particular choice of financial ratio but allows researchers to visually order firms along the pairwise financial ratios for any two accounts. Non-financial magnitudes and time evolution can be added to the visualization as desired. We show an example of its application to the top chains in the Spanish grocery retail sector and show how the technique can be used to depict strategic management differences in financial structure or performance, and their evolution over time.

An Innovative Multifunctional Buoy Design for Monitoring Continuous Environmental Dynamics at Tianjin Port

The Tianjin port plays a relevant role in driving both ship navigation and the weather and climate of the area. To better understand the underlying peculiarities of this area, several in-service coastal ocean system and facilities have been constructed, at present, the whole coastal ocean systems at Tianjin port have been improved, however, they cannot meet the safety requirements of traffic management and navigational safety. Marine buoys have the unreplaceable advantages of long-term, real-time, reliable capabilities and trivial environmental restrictions to monitor the marine dynamics. Here an innovative multifunctional buoy prototype is proposed to continuously measure meteorological and oceanographic parameters at a high spatial and temporal resolution, which can ensure navigation safety at Tianjin Port. Solar panels and battery module are personalized to ensure electric supply to the buoy system. An independent ARM (Advanced RISC Machine)-based module is affiliated to maintain the stability of the data acquisition and communication module. Buoy platform based on Beidou difference is proved to be an effective approach for the tide measurement. Additionally, a web-designed software for data acquisition is integrated for the visualization purpose. Finally, in-field recording test at Tianjin port will be performed to verify effectiveness of our system on monitoring environment dynamics. It turns out that our buoy prototype functions as a reliable and energy favorable electrical device and shed light on the development of effective measurement instruments working under unpredictable and harsh marine environment.

Visualization of dose distribution inside soft X-ray machine based on OSL technology

In this study, as a part of the development of the radiation mapping technology, we are planning to develop the gamma-ray imager based on a passive detector such as a dosimeter. For this purpose, we demonstrated the use of nanoDot OSLD as a passive detector being irradiated inside a soft x-ray machine then combined the irradiation position (qualitatively) with radiation dose (quantitatively) for visualization purpose. The experimental results showed that the NanoDots exhibit good linearity and reproducibility when subjected to soft X-rays machine, Hence, the nanoDots showed a promising potential for visualization of dose distribution.

Use of GIS and Remote Sensing Technology as a Decision Support Tool in Flood Disaster Management: The Case of Southeast Louisiana, USA

The primary objective of this paper was to identify flood-prone areas in Southeast of Louisiana to help decision-makers to develop appropriate adaptation strategies and flood prediction, and mitigation of the effects on the community. In doing so, the paper uses satellite remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) data for this purpose. Elevation data was obtained from the National Elevation Dataset (NED) produced by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) seamless data warehouse. Satellite data was also acquired from USGS Earth explorer website. Topographical information on runoff characteristics such as slope, aspect and the digital elevation model was generated. Grid interpolation TIN (triangulated irregular network) was carried from the digital elevation model (DEM) to create slope map. Image Drape was performed using ERDAS IMAGINE Virtual GIS. The output image was then draped over the NED elevation data for visualization purposes with vertical exaggeration of 16 feet. Results of the study revealed that majority of the study area lies in low-lying and very low-lying terrain below sea level. Policy recommendation in the form of the need to design and build a comprehensive Regional Information Systems (RIS) in the form of periodic inventorying, monitoring and evaluation with full support of the governments was made for the study area.

Артикуляторные характеристики реализаций звуков типа «а» в барабинском, алтайском и башкирском языках в сопоставительном аспекте

Purpose. Experimental phonetics is a fundamental source of typological reconstructions. It provides plausible data on the phonetic processes progressing in a language, dialect, or subdialect. In this paper, we compare the results of MRI-investigation of the sound a (it being the most frequently used in the Turkic languages) in related though quite distant languages: Baraba-Tatar, Altai (Ust-Khan subdialect) and Bashkir (Eastern dialect). Thus, the purpose of our study is to distinguish the articulatory traits of the a-type sound in the Barabian, Altai and Bashkir languages under different positional and combinatory conditions as a result of somatic experimental-phonetic research. Magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI) of the vocal tunings was done from the native speakers of the three languages: Baraba-Tatar, Altai, and Bashkir. The static MRI images comprising a-type articulations were selected from the obtained database. The somatic analysis of the linguistic material was conducted in accordance with the technique practiced in the V. M. Nadelyayev’s Laboratory of Experimental-Phonetic Researches (IP SB RAS). Sound tomograms have been analyzed and interpreted, tomoschemes are presented for the visualization purpose. In total, 17 tomograms have been described. The authors have processed the linguistic and experimental material on three Turkic idioms and made a number of important conclusions. 1. A-type sound is realized in the back row words in the languages under consideration, which coincides with the supposition about Turkic vowel harmony suggested earlier. 2. In all languages under investigation the general tuning of the sound a is similar: it is central-back. But what makes it unique for every language is its additional characteristics. For example, in Barabian the phoneme /ʌ̇˘/ can be realized in pharyngealized, nasalized and labialized variants, while the Ust-Khan phoneme /ʌ̇/ is the most unified one (nonnasalized, rarely labialized and pharyngealized). The Eastern Bashkirian phoneme /ɤ̇/ resembles the Baraba-Tatar phoneme in many aspects. 3. The statement (based on the perceptive analysis) about the use of more open and in some senses more backward, laryngeal and even pharyngealized sound a in some sub-dialects of the Eastern dialect of Bashkir did not turn out to be correct. According to the experimental data, all eastern Bashkir tunings appear to be central-back strongly shifted forward, i.e. the tongue does not move backward too much. Regarding the mouth openness, all variants of the Eastern Bashkirian sound a are half narrow (the third level of openness), and in some cases they can even be said to be narrow (the second level). 4. Despite the territorial closeness of Altai (Ust-Khan sub-dialect) and Baraba-Tatar, the comparative analysis of the articulatory peculiarities of the vocal tunings under discussion revealed close correlation between Barabian and Eastern Bashkirian realizations of sound a. It might be accounted for by similar ways of their development (both of historical and immanent character) as well as by the literary Tatar language and its dialects influence on Baraba-Tatar (an intensive wave of immigrants from the Volga-Ural region into Baraba Steppe where Baraba-Tartars had been historically living was recorded in the beginning of the 20th century). To sum up, the further investigation of all vocal system units is necessary to make final conclusions about typological likelihood or diversity of the languages under consideration.

«Chaos and Clues» algorithm in routine practice of analyzing dermatoscopic image

The article describes theoretical bases and practical aspects of the use in clinical practice of the «Chaos and Clues» algorithm of dermatoscopic diagnostics of pigmented skin lesions developed by a group of scientists from different countries of the world. The article provides a detailed description of the application of this algorithm in conditions of real clinical practice. It was emphasized that the use of dermatoscopy as a simple and non­invasive method of research in the practice of a dermatologist allows a more accurate assessment of skin tumors with a careful review of important additional details of their morphology, which in turn increases the accuracy of the diagnosis. For the most part, the dermatoscopy is performed for the purpose of differential diagnosis and visualization of the pigmentary or vascular structures of the epidermis and upper layers of the dermis. Increasingly, dermatoscopy is successfully used to diagnose unpigmented elements, but this article focuses on the diagnostic algorithm for pigmented neoplasms of the skin. The purpose of this publication is to inform specialists about a clear, concise, understandable and consistent algorithm, necessary for the analysis of patterns visible in dermatoscopy. The article proves that the structure of the «Chaos and Clues» algorithm is extremely simple and convenient for implementation in everyday practice. It is noted that the main advantage of this algorithm is the clarity and logic of using terminology to name elements of a dermatoscopic picture, and an original way to use these characteristics for the purpose of establishing a diagnosis. These characteristics are extremely relevant today, when in various sources of information we come across many visual and descriptive terms that, instead of explaining, introduce misunderstandings in the diagnostic process, unreasonably complicate the terminology, which may mislead an insufficiently experienced medical specialist.

UAV-BASED PHOTOGRAMMETRY FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE SITE SURVEY AND 3D MODELING OF THE SARDUS PATER TEMPLE (ITALY)

Abstract. Despite the high standard guaranteed by 3D scanning technology, image based modeling establishes the most widely used technique for surface reconstruction, being a cheaper and more portable approach. The strong increase in the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), is increasingly affirming and consolidating over the years. Being more cheap and portable than the active sensors approach, the combination of photogrammetry and drones is widely used for different applications both for large scale mapping and for documentation of architecture and archaeological heritage. UAV based photogrammetry allows for rapid accurate mapping and three-dimensional modelling. Over the last two decades, the study of archaeological sites have benefited from the constant evolution of sensor-based surveying techniques, finding effective application for purely visualization purposes or for the extraction of metric data. The Punic-Roman temple "Sardus Pater Babai" in southern Sardinia (Italy), has been the subject of a massive anastylosis. The close-range photogrammetry technique, exploiting the images produced by a UAV consumer and the GNSS system data, has allowed the creation of metrically correct 2D and 3D models useful also for an effective visualization of the information. A series of ortho-images has been extracted in order to represent plan, elevations and cross-sections of the monument.

Semantic Metadata Information (SMI) Visualisation Technique Using the Integration of Ontology and UML Graph-Based Approach to Support Program Comprehension

Representing any ideas with pictures rather than words is intuitively more appealing because a visual presentation can be more readily understood than that of textual-based. Program visualisation is one of the techniques that can be used in teaching to help users in understanding how programs work. Program visualisation technique is a mental image or a visual representation of an object, scene, person or abstraction that is similar to visual perception. This technique is significant to users because the criteria of source code cannot be physically viewed. It is applicable in the process of writing programs as it helps users to understand their codes better. The purpose of program visualisation is to translate a program into a graphical view to show either the program code, data or control flow. Visualisation technique uses the capability of human visual system to enhance program comprehensibility. Thus, this study uses program visualisation technique to represent program domain in a graphical view to help novices in improving their comprehension. This research aims to support beginners or novice programmers who have been exposed to programming languages by providing effective visualisation technique.

Challenges in the Multivariate Analysis of Mass Cytometry Data: The Effect of Randomization.

Cytometry by time‐of‐flight (CyTOF) has emerged as a high‐throughput single cell technology able to provide large samples of protein readouts. Already, there exists a large pool of advanced high‐dimensional analysis algorithms that explore the observed heterogeneous distributions making intriguing biological inferences. A fact largely overlooked by these methods, however, is the effect of the established data preprocessing pipeline to the distributions of the measured quantities. In this article, we focus on randomization, a transformation used for improving data visualization, which can negatively affect multivariate data analysis methods such as dimensionality reduction, clustering, and network reconstruction algorithms. Our results indicate that randomization should be used only for visualization purposes, but not in conjunction with high‐dimensional analytical tools. © 2019 The Authors. Cytometry Part A published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Advancement of Cytometry.

Has Drug Design Augmented by Artificial Intelligence Become a Reality?

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) to drug discovery has become a hot topic in recent years. Generative molecular design based on deep learning is a particular an area of attention. Zhavoronkov etal. recently published a novel approach in which de novo molecular design based on deep learning was used to discover novel potent DDR1 kinase inhibitors. It took 21days from model building to compound design, and a total of six AI-designed compounds were synthesized and tested. The study highlights how quickly the field of AI-designed compounds is developing, and we can expect further developments in the coming years.

3D BIM-enabled spatial query for retrieving property boundaries: a case study in Victoria, Australia

ABSTRACTIn the cadastral system of Victoria, the legal extent of properties is defined by a wide range of property boundaries referencing physical objects. These boundary types are typically represented in 2D plans. However, to address the challenges of 2D plans in complex buildings, there has been a growing trend towards the adoption of 3D models. These 3D models have been mainly used for visualization purposes, with no spatial query developed for identifying property boundaries in 3D models. Among 3D models, the Building Information Modelling (BIM) environment provides the potential capabilities for modelling property boundaries. In this paper, a spatial query approach predicated on topological relationships between a legal space and physical objects is developed to identify four types of property boundaries. A BIM model based on a case study in Victoria is used for implementation of the developed approach and the retrieved boundaries related to several properties with different levels of structural complexities are represented. In addition, various challenges during this process such as the impact of different design methods, and issues related to balconies and doors are discussed. The importance of this study is highlighted by a common scenario related to querying property boundaries.

The influence of Hinode/SOT NFI instrumental effects on the visibility of simulated prominence fine structures in Hα

Context. Models of entire prominences with their numerous fine structures distributed within the prominence magnetic field use approximate radiative transfer techniques to visualize the simulated prominences. However, to accurately compare synthetic images of prominences obtained in this way with observations and to precisely analyze the visibility of even the faintest prominence features, it is important to take into account the influence of instrumental properties on the synthetic spectra and images. Aims. In the present work, we investigate how synthetic Hα images of simulated prominences are impacted by the instrumental effects induced by the Narrowband Filter Imager (NFI) of the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) onboard the Hinode satellite. Methods. To process the synthetic Hα images provided by 3D Whole-Prominence Fine Structure (WPFS) models into SOT-like synthetic Hα images, we take into account the effects of the integration over the theoretical narrow-band transmission profile of NFI Lyot filter, the influence of the stray-light and point spread function (PSF) of Hinode/SOT, and the observed noise level. This allows us to compare the visibility of the prominence fine structures in the SOT-like synthetic Hα images with the synthetic Hα line-center images used by the 3D models and with a pair of Hinode/SOT NFI observations of quiescent prominences. Results. The comparison between the SOT-like synthetic Hα images and the synthetic Hα line-center images shows that all large and small-scale features are very similar in both visualizations and that the same very faint prominence fine structures can be discerned in both. This demonstrates that the computationally efficient Hα line-center visualization technique can be reliably used for the purpose of visualization of complex 3D prominence models. In addition, the qualitative comparison between the SOT-like synthetic images and prominence observations shows that the 3D WPFS models can reproduce large-scale prominence features rather well. However, the distribution of the prominence fine structures is significantly more diffuse in the observations than in the models and the diffuse intensity areas surrounding the observed prominences are also not present in the synthetic images. We also found that the maximum intensities reached in the models are about twice as high as those present in the observations–an indication that the mass-loading assumed in the present 3D WPFS models might be too large.