Depicting dynamics using principles of visual art and narrations

Follow the Smoke: Immersive Display of Motion Data With Synthesized Smoke

With the development of motion capture and graphics technology, visual feedback becomes increasingly important for tasks such as motion training. In order to engage users with immersive visual feedback, we introduce smoke simulation to enhance the motion display. Boundary conditions in the smoke simulation are designed to produce smoke which follows and implies the corresponding complex human motion. We also synthesize multilayer smoke, which is shown to be useful for emphasizing the motion of specified limbs. We implement our technique in an HMD-based virtual reality (VR) system for Tai-Chi training. User study results show that synthesized smoke is useful for enhancing the motion display, and that the training process is generally preferred in terms of engagement.

Glyph-Based Video Visualization for Semen Analysis

The existing efforts in computer assisted semen analysis have been focused on high speed imaging and automated image analysis of sperm motility. This results in a large amount of data, and it is extremely challenging for both clinical scientists and researchers to interpret, compare and correlate the multidimensional and time-varying measurements captured from video data. In this work, we use glyphs to encode a collection of numerical measurements taken at a regular interval and to summarize spatio-temporal motion characteristics using static visual representations. The design of the glyphs addresses the needs for (a) encoding some 20 variables using separable visual channels, (b) supporting scientific observation of the interrelationships between different measurements and comparison between different sperm cells and their flagella, and (c) facilitating the learning of the encoding scheme by making use of appropriate visual abstractions and metaphors. As a case study, we focus this work on video visualization for computer-aided semen analysis, which has a broad impact on both biological sciences and medical healthcare. We demonstrate that glyph-based visualization can serve as a means of external memorization of video data as well as an overview of a large set of spatiotemporal measurements. It enables domain scientists to make scientific observation in a cost-effective manner by reducing the burden of viewing videos repeatedly, while providing them with a new visual representation for conveying semen statistics.

Visualizing Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR) imagery: challenges and opportunities

Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR) imaging is an essential technique for measuring regional myocardial function. However, it is a time-consuming and cognitively demanding task to interpret, identify and compare various motion characteristics based on watching CMR imagery. In this work, we focus on the problems of visualising imagery resulting from 2D myocardial tagging in CMR. In particular we provide an overview of the current state of the art of relevant visualization techniques, and a discussion on why the problem is difficult from a perceptual perspective. Finally, we introduce a proof-of-concept multilayered visualization user interface for visualizing CMR data using multiple derived attributes encoded into multivariate glyphs. An initial evaluation of the system by clinicians suggested a great potential for this visualisation technology to become a clinical practice in the future.