Kinetic Visualization

Motion provides strong visual cues for the perception of shape and depth, as demonstrated by cognitive scientists and visual artists. This paper presents a novel visualization technique -- kinetic visualization -- using particle systems to add supplemental motion cues which can aid in the perception of shape and spatial relationships of static objects. Based on a set of rules following perceptual and physical principles, particles flowing over the surface of an object not only bring out, but also attract attention to essential shape information of the object that might not be readily visible with conventional rendering that uses lighting and view changes. Replacing still images with animations in this fashion, we demonstrate with both surface and volumetric models in a video that in many cases the resulting visualizations effectively enhance the perception of three-dimensional shape and structure. The results of a preliminary user study that we have conducted also show clear evidence that the supplemental motion cues helped.

  1. SIGGRAPH 2002 Sketches abstract
  2. IEEE Visualization 2002 Conference paper
  3. An extended version of the paper (to appear in IEEE TVCG 2003)

Individual video segments

These vidoes segments are ordered as listed in the extended version of the paper.
  1. mouse1.mpg
    fuel.mpg
    neghip.mpg
    Demonstrating Kinetic Visualization using three different data sets.
  2. comparison.mpg Comparison between Phong shading and Kinetic visualization
  3. pcd.mpg
    Showing the effect with and without particles following principal curvature directions
  4. flocking.mpg
    Showing the effect with and without flocking
  5. density.mpg
    Showing the effect with and without density controlling rules.
  6. size.mpg
    Showing the effect of varying particle sizes
  7. mouse2.mpg
    Kinetic Visualization with varying view angles
  8. orientedtexture.jpg and orientedtexture.mpg
    A static image showing a surface rendered with an oriented texture and an animation showing the same surface with Kinetic Visualization.
  9. texturekinvis.mpg
    Showing a surface rendered with an oriented texture and Kinetic Visualization simultaneously.