Interactive visualization of APT data at full fidelity

Visualization in Materials Research

“…Our focus in this chapter, however, is on methodologies that extend the graphics capabilities and that provide an interactive experience for the user, which we feel is critical for enabling the researcher to best understand the information inherent in their data. We will use three examples to illustrate these points: The analysis of SIMS data (Reichenbach et al, 2011), a recent study of visualization of atom-probe tomography data (Bryden et al, 2013), and the use of visualization in analyzing simulations (Bryden et al, 2012;Sharma et al, 2003).…”

“…We (Bryden et al, 2013) recently introduced the application and optimization of a rendering technique used in protein visualization, known as spherical impostor rendering, to enable interactive rendering of all the data points in modestly sized APT data sets (more than 10 million atoms based on current graphics cards) as lit spheres, representing an enormous leap forward over the previous state of the art used to visualize individual atomic positions in APT data. This approach enables the researcher to visualize large data sets and to change the representation of that data on the screen in real time.…”

“…Our new rendering technique formed the basis of a new visualization platform for APT data (Bryden et al, 2013). The platform is highly interactive, offering the user the ability, in real time, to selectively filter and color the visualization based on the attributes of the data.…”

“…The sphere rendering methods that we introduced in Bryden et al (2013) are fast enough that we can manipulate images of APT data sets in real time, by which we mean that we can change the attributes or the visualization view presented on screen with little perceptible computational time.…”

“…One example will present visualization schemes to extract meaningful chemistryÀproperty relationships from large combinatorial experimental data (Suh et al, 2009). The other example will be based on three-dimensional atomistic imaging and simulation to demonstrate how one can interactively query complex visualization schemes to extract useful microstructural information (Bryden et al, 2013). In both cases, the value of visualization methods is highlighted by the fact that it uncovers information that otherwise would have been very difficult to detect.…”