Bringing research articles to life with animated figures

Abstract

International audienc

Preparing scientists for a visual future

“…Figures and illustrations for publications must clearly describe models and processes to broad audiences and ideally should tell a clear story along with context [5]. Generally, animation and videos can efficiently communicate dynamic and temporal information, such as a sequence of events, conformational changes, movement or motion of entities, and their interactions within a system [5][6][7]. Generally, animation and videos can efficiently communicate dynamic and temporal information, such as a sequence of events, conformational changes, movement or motion of entities, and their interactions within a system [5][6][7].…”

“…Generally, animation and videos can efficiently communicate dynamic and temporal information, such as a sequence of events, conformational changes, movement or motion of entities, and their interactions within a system [5][6][7]. Such movies can also be used to highlight subtle visual differences that would be difficult to detect using static figures [6]. Such movies can also be used to highlight subtle visual differences that would be difficult to detect using static figures [6].…”

“…With the availability of technologies that embed interactive and animated content within a PDF document [5,6,8], HTML5 [6], and other formats, we look forward to platforms where all content-text, visuals, data, metadata, simulations, videos, code, hypertext links, and other elements-is provided in a cohesive and interactive interface, allowing for a more productive and enjoyable reading experience. Despite the capabilities of digital publishing, many journals have retained their print-based nature, where multimedia content is supplied as supplementary information that is often inconvenient to access.…”

“…The Journal of Visual Experiments (JoVE) exclusively publishes scientific protocols in video format [6]. The Journal of Visual Experiments (JoVE) exclusively publishes scientific protocols in video format [6].…”

“…Interactive Science Publishing (ISP) is a software that allows readers to visualize and analyze original 2D and 3D image datasets submitted with papers [6]. Although not prevalent, a few journals support interactive PDFs [6,8]. Cell Press and Elsevier introduced graphical abstracts as a preview into the article's key findings.…”