Visualization Software Architectures for Arts, Humanities,
and STEM Integration

Exhibitions

Climate Prisms

Intro to Climate Prisms: The Arctic from Francesca Samsel on Vimeo.

Climate Prisms: The Arctic is an interactive museum exhibit about three Arctic researchers exploring and documenting the rapidly changing Arctic tundra. The work focuses on these scientists’ primary specialties: geomorphology, hydrology and biogeochemistry. The work provides entry into their laboratories, field sites and daily research activities, pulling away the veil that obscures the scientific process and grounding abstractions in human experience.

The goal of this work is to bridge the distance between the physical world and scientific process through multiple approachable modalities pulled from both the world of art and the world of science. Content paths are determined by an underlying system of tags, levels, content categories and related research areas. A screen shows a set of images. Each image can be accessed to provide image-specific information or can act as a launch point for a new set of related content and images that allows the user to continue exploring their chosen subject matter. Each person creates a unique path through hundreds of pieces of climate content. Embedded assessments log basic demographics of each individual that interacts with the work. Each participant is able to plot their own path through the complex science, moving through the content at the pace and level of detail that best enabled them to engage with the material.

Immersive Exhibit

Another ongoing focus of this project is physical + digital immersive spaces that allow visitors to interact with data, imagery, and natural artifacts to draw connections within and between their everyday lives and the devastating effects of rapid climate change.
Below, a video of data elements of a visualization of the Gulf of Mexico flow, back-projected onto shower curtains in a multi-use conference room in the UT Vis Lab. The team is interested in using low-cost materials to produce engaging and immersive experiences with climate data.

Planetariums

In partnership with The Bell Planetarium and Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and The Los Alamos Nature Center Planetarium in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the Sculpting Vis collaborative is working to translate mult-modal interactive data visualizations and our Artifact-Based Rendering software for use in public planetariums and science museums around the country. The group seeks to engage diverse audiences in new and imaginative forms of interactive exploration of large, complex, and often inaccessible datasets in equally large and immersive spaces to increase broader impacts and to better understand how to break down the barrier between research and public-facing content.

Sculpting Visualizations © 2021