User:Ema0010/Cinematic scientific visualization

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Cinematic scientific visualization (CSV) is the visual presentation of scientific data in a way that is typically associated with non-scientific filmmaking techniques including cinematography, lighting, and composition. Cinematic scientific visualizations are often created for purposes of science communication to the general public, e.g. through museum exhibits and documentary films.[1] While based on real data, these visualizations are meant to entertain as well as educate their viewers, communicating science through tangible cinematic experiences.[2][3]

Differences from traditional scientific visualization[edit]

Cinematic scientific visualization of the Orion Nebula, created by NASA.
Scientific visualization of a supernova.

CSV is considered a subfield of scientific visualization, although the creation methods and visual outputs differ due to CSV's heavy emphasis on aesthetics and design. Where scientific visualization aims to utilize data to aid researchers in understanding scientific phenomena and possibly confirm hypotheses, CSV's primary purpose is to be visually digestible and appealing for the average viewer. [2][4]

Traditional scientific visualization and cinematic scientific visualization differ in a number of important ways:

Differences between traditional and cinematic scientific visualization
Traditional Scientific Visualization Cinematic Scientific Visualization
Purpose Data analysis Science communication, entertainment
Audience Scientists General public
Visual Style Didactic, diagrammatic Photorealistic, cinematic
Development Platform Scientific tools (e.g. ParaView, VisIt) Visual effects software (e.g. Houdini, Autodesk Maya)

History[edit]

NASA collaborating with Pixar to visualize weather patterns.
Image depicts a news article by the Washington Post discussing animation and data visualization in 2006.

The term "cinematic scientific visualization" was first published by Donna Cox in 2008 referring to work created by the Advanced Visualization Lab[5] and was popularized by Kalina Borkiewicz of the same lab who published a series of papers, conference presentations, and interviews on the topic beginning in 2017[6][7][8][9][2]. The term is now widely used to describe work done by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio[10], Siemens Healthineers[11], NVIDIA[12], and others.

In 2006, NASA collaborated with Pixar Animation Studios, using their RenderMan Interface Specification API and Autodesk Maya to create animations of various weather patterns and large scale movements across the Earth.[13] These visualizations allowed for researchers to study and better understand ocean movement during the stages between the weather phenomena El Niño and La Niña.

In film[edit]

The first large scale broadly-distributed cinematic scientific visualization appeared in the IMAX film Cosmic Voyage in 1996, though at the time this was simply referred to as a "scientific visualization" without the "cinematic" qualifier.[14] Rather than focus on aesthetics, the film sought to visualize events such as the "Big Bang" and elements invisible to the human eye such as atoms and quarks.[15]

Many usages of cinematic scientific visualization are found in science-based documentary style films. Atlas of a Changing Earth for example, used data collected on the Arctic to render a high resolution simulation depicting the collapse of the Vavilov icecap.[16]

In 2014, the film Interstellar featured a cinematic scientific visualization of a physically-accurate black hole in a science fiction film.[17] This predates the first image of a black hole, Messier 87, by 5 years.[18] The black hole was rendered using code, Double Negative Gravitational Renderer (DNGR), designed by DNEG specifically for the film.[19] It took 30 people a full year to create the supermassive black hole, with some individual frames taking over 100 hours to render.[20]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Borkiewicz, Kalina; Christensen, A J; Wyatt, Ryan; Wright, Ernest T. (2020-08-17). "Introduction to cinematic scientific visualization". ACM SIGGRAPH 2020 Courses. SIGGRAPH '20. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery: 1–267. doi:10.1145/3388769.3407502. ISBN 978-1-4503-7972-4.
  2. ^ a b c Jensen, Eric A.; Borkiewicz, Kalina Maria; Naiman, Jill P. (2022). "A New Frontier in Science Communication? What We Know About How Public Audiences Respond to Cinematic Scientific Visualization". Frontiers in Communication. 7. doi:10.3389/fcomm.2022.840631/full. ISSN 2297-900X.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  3. ^ Conlen, Matthew; Heer, Jeffrey; Mushkin, Hillary; Davidoff, Scott (8 Jan 2023). "Cinematic Techniques in Narrative Visualization".
  4. ^ Card, Mackinlay, and Shneiderman (1999), Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think, Morgan Kaufmann, pp. 6–7
  5. ^ Cox, Donna J. (2008). ASTRAL PROJECTION: THEORIES OF METAPHOR, PHILOSOPHIES OF SCIENCE, AND THE ART O F SCIENTIFIC VISUALIZATION (Thesis thesis). University of Plymouth.
  6. ^ "A Life of Its Own". us-rse.org. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  7. ^ Conferences, SIGGRAPH (2019-07-23). "Why Cinematic Scientific Visualization Is More Important Than Ever". ACM SIGGRAPH Blog. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  8. ^ Borkiewicz, Kalina; Naiman, J.P.; Lai, Haoming (2019). "Cinematic Visualization of Multiresolution Data: Ytini for Adaptive Mesh Refinement in Houdini". The Astronomical Journal. 158 (1): 10. arXiv:1808.02860. Bibcode:2019AJ....158...10B. doi:10.3847/1538-3881/ab1f6f. S2CID 51941852.
  9. ^ Borkiewicz, Kalina; Christensen, A J; Stone, John E. (2017-07-30). "Communicating science through visualization in an age of alternative facts". ACM SIGGRAPH 2017 Courses. SIGGRAPH '17. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery: 1–204. doi:10.1145/3084873.3084935. ISBN 978-1-4503-5014-3.
  10. ^ GMS, NASA's (2019-09-17). "GMS: SIGGRAPH 2019 Update". svs.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  11. ^ Making the impossible possible: Meet the team who brought Cinematic Rendering to the HoloLens, retrieved 2023-12-05
  12. ^ ExCALIBUR SLE Workshop 5: Nick Leaf - Cinematic Scientific Visualization with ParaView and Omniverse, retrieved 2023-12-05
  13. ^ Rosenwald, Michael S. (2006-08-21). "Telling NASA's Tales With Hollywood's Tools". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  14. ^ Cox, Donna J. (1996-01-01). "Cosmic voyage: scientific visualization for IMAX film". ACM SIGGRAPH 96 Visual Proceedings: The art and interdisciplinary programs of SIGGRAPH '96. SIGGRAPH '96. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery: 129. doi:10.1145/253607.253842. ISBN 978-0-89791-784-1.
  15. ^ "National Air and Space Museum Press Release: IMAX® Audiences Embark on a Cosmic Voyage Through Time and Space". web.archive.org. 2009-04-04. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  16. ^ Borkiewicz, Kalina; Levy; Carpenter; Cox; Patterson; Christensen (17 October 2022). "Cinematic Scientific Visualization for the Documentary Film Atlas of a Changing Earth" (PDF).
  17. ^ James, Oliver; von Tunzelmann, Eugenine; Franklin, Paul; Thorne, Kip (2015). "Gravitational lensing by spinning black holes in astrophysics, and in the movie Interstellar". Classical and Quantum Gravity. 32 (6): 065001. arXiv: 1502.03808. Bibcode:2015CQGra..32f5001J. doi:10.1088/0264-9381/32/6/065001.
  18. ^ Press, The Associated (2019-04-10). "Video: Astronomers Reveal the First Picture of a Black Hole". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  19. ^ James, Oliver; Tunzelmann, Eugénie von; Franklin, Paul; Thorne, Kip S. (2015-03-01). "Gravitational lensing by spinning black holes in astrophysics, and in the movie Interstellar". Classical and Quantum Gravity. 32: 065001. doi:10.1088/0264-9381/32/6/065001. ISSN 0264-9381.
  20. ^ "How Building a Black Hole for 'Interstellar' Led to an Amazing Scientific Discovery". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
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