Parallel rendering

Journal ArticleMassively parallel computers have emerged as valuable tools for performing scientific and engineering computations, far outstripping the capabilities of independent workstations in both sheer floating point performance and memory capacity. As the resolution of simulation models increases, graphics algorithms that take advantage of the large memory and parallelism of these architectures are becoming increasingly important. This issue of IEEE Parallel & Distributed Technology highlights some recent work in parallel computer graphics, specifically parallel rendering

How information graphics promote interactions between the media and audiences

The purpose of this study is to understand how employing information graphics in the traditional newsrooms takes place and how the uses of the information graphics facilitate the interactions between the reporters and the readers and among readers. In order to answer the research questions, first, interviews with reporters from the six news outlets (i.e., the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the Guardian of London) were conducted to gain insights into the visual journalists' perceptions on the impacts of information graphics on facilitating conversations between the news organizations and the readers. Overall, the interviews showed that journalists in general consider information graphics as efficient and vital tools for data delivery and complex storytelling, and in each of the newsrooms, an increase in readers' discussion participation is observed when articles are accompanied with graphics. Secondly, a quantitative content analysis was conducted using 248 articles from the six news outlets. The articles selected are half with information graphics and half without. The comparisons between those articles (i.e., with information graphics vs. without information graphics) were made on the number of comments and the number of unique commenters along with the features of the graphics. The results showed that in general, articles with graphics received greater numbers of comments and higher numbers of unique commenters compared to articles without graphics. It was also evident that a good information graphics is a product for a number of reasons. Yet no simple feature stood out as the prominent reason for the differences of comment numbers across different news organizations

A Brief History of Data Visualization (and the role of libraries and librarians)

Graphics, illustrations, charts, and tables have accompanied scientific works for as long as people have been reporting findings and publishing papers. Once the purview of researchers and graphic illustrators, today finds libraries and librarians involved in many aspects of data including access, management, preservation, and visualization. This illustrated timeline traces the history of data visualization from generations of hand-drawn images to today’s exploding arena of data production and visualization tools, highlighting the efforts and opportunities for information professionals and introducing this special issue of Journal of eScience Librarianship devoted to data visualization

Emerging Trends in Visual Science Communication: How to create informative and inspiring graphics for journals and presentations

Effective science communication is highly dependent on clear, effective and eye-catching visuals. However, most scientists or research organizations do not have the resources to hire professional studios nor have an on-staff design team. Additionally, some research may involve proprietary information that make it difficult to bring on external team members on a whim. Luckily, there are ways to obtain or create an effective image to communicate complex science topics, whether it’s for a journal figure, a keynote presentation, internal team discussions, or the general public. This webinar will cover some techniques and available tools on how to improve the use and creation of scientific graphics in journals, graphical abstracts, peer-peer communication, or general science communication for the public. Discussion will focus on a few key design and rendering techniques that any non-artist can implement when approaching graphics, schematics, or general presentation of scientific information (including proper layout, basic color or font choices, and when to include images)

Semi-automated creation of converged iTV services: From macromedia director simulations to services ready for broadcast

While sound and video may capture viewers’ attention, interaction can captivate them. This has not been available prior to the advent of Digital Television. In fact, what lies at the heart of the Digital Television revolution is this new type of interactive content, offered in the form of interactive Television (iTV) services. On top of that, the new world of converged networks has created a demand for a new type of converged services on a range of mobile terminals (Tablet PCs, PDAs and mobile phones). This paper aims at presenting a new approach to service creation that allows for the semi-automatic translation of simulations and rapid prototypes created in the accessible desktop multimedia authoring package Macromedia Director into services ready for broadcast. This is achieved by a series of tools that de-skill and speed-up the process of creating digital TV user interfaces (UI) and applications for mobile terminals. The benefits of rapid prototyping are essential for the production of these new types of services, and are therefore discussed in the first section of this paper. In the following sections, an overview of the operation of content, service, creation and management sub-systems is presented, which illustrates why these tools compose an important and integral part of a system responsible of creating, delivering and managing converged broadcast and telecommunications services. The next section examines a number of metadata languages candidates for describing the iTV services user interface and the schema language adopted in this project. A detailed description of the operation of the two tools is provided to offer an insight of how they can be used to de-skill and speed-up the process of creating digital TV user interfaces and applications for mobile terminals. Finally, representative broadcast oriented and telecommunication oriented converged service components are also introduced, demonstrating how these tools have been used to generate different types of services