Exploratory visualization of astronomical data on ultra-high-resolution wall displays

Abstract

Ultra-high-resolution wall displays feature a very high pixel density over a large physical surface, which makes them well-suited to the collaborative, exploratory visualization of large datasets. We introduce FITS-OW, an application designed for such wall displays, that enables astronomers to navigate in large collections of FITS images, query astronomical databases, and display detailed, complementary data and documents about multiple sources simultaneously. We describe how astronomers interact with their data using both the wall's touchsensitive surface and handheld devices. We also report on the technical challenges we addressed in terms of distributed graphics rendering and data sharing over the computer clusters that drive wall displays.

Pattern-Driven Navigation in 2D Multiscale Visualizations with Scalable Insets

“…For example, computational biologists study thousands of small patterns in large genome interaction matrices [12] to understand which physical interactions between regions on the genome are the driving factor that defines the 3D structure of the genome. In astronomy, researchers are exploring and comparing multiple heterogeneous galaxies and stars with super high-resolution imagery [53]. In either case, inspecting every potentially important region in detail is simply not feasible.…”

Engineering Interactive Geospatial Visualizations for Cluster-Driven Ultra-high-resolution Wall Displays

“…It also means that small-multiple visualizations, that juxtapose a series of related maps or charts to ease their comparison, can be rendered with a level of detail significantly higher than the typical thumbnail-like renderings shown on desktop displays [3]. It also enables displaying data that do not directly belong to the map [6], such as documents, tables, statistical charts, or node-link diagrams. Those can be juxtaposed with the map, or superimposed on top of it in regions of lesser importance, depending on the application and task at hand.…”

“…Those can be juxtaposed with the map, or superimposed on top of it in regions of lesser importance, depending on the application and task at hand. Similarly, multiple locally-bounded interactive magnifications of the geographical region of interest can be displayed over the main map, possibly showing different layers of information (e.g., multispectral images [6]) at different scales. Figure 1-b illustrates such an example: users work with multiple views giving complementary perspectives on the geographical region of interest at different levels of detail.…”

Comparative Visualization of Deep Water Asteroid Impacts on Ultra-high-resolution Wall Displays with Seawall

“…Larger walls have appeared since then. Potential applications include, e.g., astronomical data analysis [9], neuroimagery [1] and medical imagery analysis [11], road traffic management [10], air quality monitoring [8] and other geovisualizations. We describe a proof-of-concept visualization environment for the AGT data, called Seawall.…”