Data physicalizations (3D printed terrain models, anatomical scans, or even abstract data) can naturally engage both the visual and haptic senses in ways that are difficult or impossible to do with traditional planar touch screens and even immersive digital displays. Yet, the rigid 3D physicalizations produced with today's most common 3D printers are fundamentally limited for data exploration and querying tasks that require dynamic input (e.g., touch sensing) and output (e.g., animation), functions that are easily handled with digital displays. We introduce a novel style of hybrid virtual + physical visualization designed specifically to support interactive data exploration tasks. Working toward a "best of both worlds" solution, our approach fuses immersive AR, physical 3D data printouts, and touch sensing through the physicalization. We demonstrate that this solution can support three of the most common spatial data querying interactions used in scientific visualization (streamline seeding, dynamic cutting places, and world-in-miniature visualization). Finally, we present quantitative performance data and describe a first application to exploratory visualization of an actively studied supercomputer climate simulation data with feedback from domain scientists.
more »
« less
Boxcars on Potatoes: Exploring the Design Language for Tangible Visualizations of Scalar Data Fields on 3D Surfaces
We present a design-based exploration of the potential to reinterpret glyph-based visualization of scalar fields on 3D surfaces, a traditional scientific visualization technique, as a data physicalization technique. Even with the best virtual reality displays, users often struggle to correctly interpret spatial relationships in 3D datasets; thus, we are motivated to understand the extent to which traditional scientific visualization methods can translate to physical media where users may simultaneously leverage their visual systems and tactile senses to, in theory, better understand and connect with the data of interest. This pictorial traces the process of our design for a specific user study experiment: (1) inspiration, (2) exploring the data physicalization design space, (3) prototyping with 3D printing, (4) applying the techniques to different synthetic datasets. We call our most recent and compelling visual/tactile design boxcars on potatoes, and the next step in the research is to run a user-based evaluation to elucidate how this design compares to several of the others pictured here.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1704604
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10163275
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the IEEE VIS 2018 Workshop: Toward a Design Language for Data Physicalization
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Data physicalization has emerged as a new method to represent and interact with data physically rather than digitally. Physical representations afford visual analysis in comparable ways to traditional, desktop- based visualization by introducing new capabilities, such as facilitating tactile manipulation, accessible interactions, and immersion, that are beyond traditional 2D visualizations. However, physicalization has historically been a niche aspect of visualization research due to its unique challenges. This work discusses the current challenges and highlights three areas where data physicalization can aid existing research thrusts: broadening participation, supporting analytics, and promoting creative expression.more » « less
-
We introduce Artifact-Based Rendering (ABR), a framework of tools, algorithms, and processes that makes it possible to produce real, data-driven 3D scientific visualizations with a visual language derived entirely from colors, lines, textures, and forms created using traditional physical media or found in nature. A theory and process for ABR is presented to address three current needs: (i) designing better visualizations by making it possible for non-programmers to rapidly design and critique many alternative data-to-visual mappings; (ii) expanding the visual vocabulary used in scientific visualizations to depict increasingly complex multivariate data; (iii) bringing a more engaging, natural, and human-relatable handcrafted aesthetic to data visualization. New tools and algorithms to support ABR include front-end applets for constructing artifact-based colormaps, optimizing 3D scanned meshes for use in data visualization, and synthesizing textures from artifacts. These are complemented by an interactive rendering engine with custom algorithms and interfaces that demonstrate multiple new visual styles for depicting point, line, surface, and volume data. A within-the-research-team design study provides early evidence of the shift in visualization design processes that ABR is believed to enable when compared to traditional scientific visualization systems. Qualitative user feedback on applications to climate science and brain imaging support the utility of ABR for scientific discovery and public communication.more » « less
-
Data physicalization has emerged as a new method to represent and interact with data physically rather than digitally. Physical representations afford visual analysis in comparable ways to traditional, desktopbased visualization by introducing new capabilities, such as facilitating tactile manipulation, accessible interactions, and immersion, that are beyond traditional 2D visualizations. However, physicalization has historically been a niche aspect of visualization research due to its unique challenges. This work discusses the current challenges and highlights three areas where data physicalization can aid existing research thrusts: broadening participation, supporting analytics, and promoting creative expression.more » « less
-
This paper introduces a web-based interactive educational platform for 3D/polyhedral graphic statics (PGS) [1]. The Block Research Group (BRG) at ETH Zürich developed a dynamic learning and teaching platform for structural design. This tool is based on traditional graphic statics. It uses interactive 2D drawings to help designers and engineers with all skill levels to understand and utilize the methods [2]. However, polyhedral graphic statics is not easy to learn because of its characteristics in three-dimensional. All the existing computational design tools are heavily dependent on the modeling software such as Rhino or the Python-based computational framework like Compass [3]. In this research, we start with the procedural approach, developing libraries using JavaScript, Three.js, and WebGL to facilitate the construction by making it independent from any software. This framework is developed based on the mathematical and computational algorithms deriving the global equilibrium of the structure, optimizing the balanced relationship between the external magnitudes and the internal forces, visualizing the dynamic reciprocal polyhedral diagrams with corresponding topological data. This instant open-source application and the visualization interface provide a more operative platform for students, educators, practicers, and designers in an interactive manner, allowing them to learn not only the topological relationship but also to deepen their knowledge and understanding of structures in the steps for the construction of the form and force diagrams and analyze it. In the simplified single-node example, the multi-step geometric procedures intuitively illustrate 3D structural reciprocity concepts. With the intuitive control panel, the user can move the constraint point’s location through the inserted gumball function, the force direction of the form diagram will be dynamically changed from compression-only to tension and compression combined. Users can also explore and design innovative, efficient spatial structures with changeable boundary conditions and constraints through real-time manipulating both force distribution and geometric form, such as adding the number of supports or subdividing the global equilibrium in the force diagram. Eventually, there is an option to export the satisfying geometry as a suitable format to share with other fabrication tools. As the online educational environment with different types of geometric examples, it is valuable to use graphical approaches to teach the structural form in an exploratory manner.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
