Introduction to cinematic scientific visualization

Borkiewicz, Kalina; Christensen, AJ; Wyatt, Ryan; Wright, E.

doi:10.1145/3388769.3407502

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…For example, the film "Interstellar" made the news for contributing to the scientific understanding of astrophysics (James et al, 2015). But the blurring of lines goes both ways: science is making visual effects more believable, while visual effects are making science more widely accessible (Borkiewicz et al, 2022). A cinematic presentation of scientific data, or 'cinematic scientific visualization', can capture public attention and interest in complex science topics in this current age of rapidly growing media consumption (Jensen et al, 2022).…”

Section: Science Communication Through Data Visualizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence-Based Methods of Communicating Science to the Public Through Data Visualization

Jensen¹,

Borkiewicz²,

Naiman³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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This essay presents a real-world demonstration of the evidence-based science communication process, showing how it can be used to create scientific data visualizations for public audiences. Visualizing research data can be an important science communication tool. Maximizing its effectiveness has the potential to benefit millions of viewers. As with many forms of science communication, creators of such data visualizations typically rely on their own judgments and the views of the scientists providing the data to inform their science communication decision-making. But that leaves out a critical stakeholder in the communications pipeline: the intended audience. Here, we show the practical steps that our team - the Advanced Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - has taken to shift towards more evidence-based practice to enhance our science communication impact. We do this using concrete examples from our work on two scientific documentary films, one on the theme of ‘solar superstorms’ and the other focusing on the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. We used audience research with each of these films to inform our strategies and designs. We describe how such research evidence informed our understanding of ‘what works and why’ with cinematic-style data visualizations for the public. We close the essay with our key ‘take home’ messages from this evidence-based science communication process.

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Section: Science Communication Through Data Visualizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence-Based Methods of Communicating Science to the Public Through Data Visualization

Jensen¹,

Borkiewicz²,

Naiman³

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, the film Interstellar made the news for contributing to the scientific understanding of astrophysics (James et al 2015) [4]. But the blurring of lines goes both ways: science is making visual effects more believable, while visual effects are making science more widely accessible (Borkiewicz et al 2022) [5]. A cinematic presentation of scientific data, or "cinematic scientific visualization", can capture public attention and interest in complex science topics in this current age of rapidly growing media consumption (Jensen et al 2022) [6].…”

Section: Science Communication Through Data Visualizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But the blurring of lines goes both ways: science is making visual effects more believable, while visual effects are making science more widely accessible (Borkiewicz et al 2022) [5]. A cinematic presentation of scientific data, or "cinematic scientific visualization", can capture public attention and interest in complex science topics in this current age of rapidly growing media consumption (Jensen et al 2022) [6]. Placing emphasis on aesthetic design, storytelling, and cinematography, these cinematic visualizations reach millions of viewers worldwide through entertainment and informal learning experiences, ranging from museums and documentary films to YouTube and Reddit.…”

Section: Science Communication Through Data Visualizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cinematic scientific visualizations are situated between the categories of traditional scientific visualization and artistic scientific illustration, integrating a visualization of scientific data and a Hollywood-style artistic impression (see Figure 1). Cinematic scientific visualization is defined by its (1) use of scientific data, (2) aim of achieving intelligibility for a public audience, and (3) visual appeal (Borkiewicz et al 2022) [5] (see Figure 2). Traditional visualization, cinematic visualization, and scientific illustration are al types of science communication, but with distinct intended audiences.…”

Section: Science Communication Through Data Visualizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evidence-Based Methods of Communicating Science to the Public through Data Visualization

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This essay presents a real-world demonstration of the evidence-based science communication process, showing how it can be used to create scientific data visualizations for public audiences. Visualizing research data can be an important science communication tool. Maximizing its effectiveness has the potential to benefit millions of viewers. As with many forms of science communication, creators of such data visualizations typically rely on their own judgments and the views of the scientists providing the data to inform their science communication decision-making. But that leaves out a critical stakeholder in the communications pipeline: the intended audience. Here, we show the practical steps that our team, the Advanced Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has taken to shift toward more evidence-based practice to enhance our science communication impact. We do this by using concrete examples from our work on two scientific documentary films, one on the theme of “solar superstorms” and the other focusing on the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. We used audience research with each of these films to inform our strategies and designs. Findings revealed specific techniques that were effective in information labels. For example, audiences appreciated the use of an outline of the Earth to demonstrate scale in scientific visualizations relating to the Sun. We describe how such research evidence informed our understanding of “what works and why” with cinematic-style data visualizations for the public. We close the essay with our key take-home messages from this evidence-based science communication process.

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“…Metaphors can find applications in communicating information to wider audiences, where connecting to people and building their interest can be more important than conveying the raw facts. For example, in cinematic SciVis [7], metaphors are vital in conveying the subject to the audience. They are also prominent in computer science education [43], helping introduce abstract concepts.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metaphorical Visualization: Mapping Data to Familiar Concepts

Tkachev

Cutura

Sedlmair

et al. 2022

CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

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We present a new approach to visualizing data that is well-suited for personal and casual applications. The idea is to map the data to another dataset that is already familiar to the user, and then rely on their existing knowledge to illustrate relationships in the data. We construct the map by preserving pairwise distances or by maintaining relative values of specific data attributes. This metaphorical mapping is very flexible and allows us to adapt the visualization to its application and target audience. We present several examples where we map data to different domains and representations. This includes mapping data to cat images, encoding research interests with neural style transfer and representing movies as stars in the night sky. Overall, we find that although metaphors are not as accurate as the traditional techniques, they can help design engaging and personalized visualizations. CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing → Visualization techniques; Visualization theory, concepts and paradigms; • Computing methodologies → Machine learning.

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Introduction to cinematic scientific visualization

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Evidence-Based Methods of Communicating Science to the Public Through Data Visualization

Evidence-Based Methods of Communicating Science to the Public Through Data Visualization

Evidence-Based Methods of Communicating Science to the Public through Data Visualization

Metaphorical Visualization: Mapping Data to Familiar Concepts

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