The influence of a diverging color scheme on the representation of rock glacier dynamics in 3D animations

Climate change has a large impact on a variety of fields and among the most heavily affected is the high mountain cryosphere, which includes rock glaciers. While it is a common approach for scientists to use image sequences such as 3D animations to detect changes in rock glacier dynamics, they are not always well perceivable for people with little knowledge about rock glaciers. However, with climate change being a topical subject, more and more people with little scientific background start to inform themselves on this issue. It is, therefore, important to provide information sources that are easily understandable by everyone. Existing literature suggests that a diverging color scheme could enhance the perception of rock glacier dynamics in terms of accuracy, perception time, and confidence. In this thesis, the influence of the diverging color scheme on these three variables is investigated by performing an online experiment in the form of a survey. The results show that the accuracy of the rock glacier perception was partly enhanced by the diverging color scheme. Further, it became evident that the addition of a diverging color scheme to a 3D animation led to significantly longer answering times as well as significantly stronger answer confidence. The results suggest a diverging color scheme partly enhances the perception of rock glacier dynamics in 3D animations, but more research is needed to further improve the visualization of rock glacier dynamics to make them easily perceptible for anyone with an interest in the topic