Beneath the Waves and Beyond the Screen: Visualising Subsea Survey Data in Three Dimensions

High-resolution subsea survey data offers a new ability to explore difficult or hazardous environments, and using multi-beam sonar, provides three-dimensional bathymetric data for visualisation. However, this data represents three-dimensional structures and locations that exist in physical space, and yet we commonly limit ourselves to viewing them in a static and two-dimensional screen-based format. Are we getting the most out of this data? Are computers, the very devices that have enabled us to “see” these objects, limiting our ability to interact with and interrogate the rich data being gathered? The author has conducted a series of workshops focused on evaluating the ‘data lifecycle’, in an attempt to improve our understanding of the communicative value of different visualisation techniques. By exploring methods of visualising subsea survey data in new, interesting, and challenging ways we can improve our understanding of the underlying data, challenge our preconceived ideas on what it might be telling us, and encourage interactivity in ways that simply wasn’t possible before.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Dylan Gauld

Conference

Publication date: July 2015

Publication date (Print): July 2015

Pages: 192-199

Affiliations

[0001]Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design

University of Dundee

Perth Road, Dundee, DD1 4HT, UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/eva2015.20

SO-VID: 8b659175-9ab0-48da-b395-058227b856b6

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts (EVA 2015)

Conference acronym: EVA

Conference number:

Conference location: London, UK

Conference date: 7 & 9 July 2015

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/eva2015.20

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

ScienceOpen disciplines: Applied computer science,Computer science,Security & Cryptology,Graphics & Multimedia design,General computer science,Human-computer-interaction

Keywords: Data visualisation,Creative practice,3D computer graphics,Visual perception,Tangible data

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J McKernan 1996 Curriculum Action Research: A Handbook of Methods and Resources for the Reflective Practitioner London, UK Kogan Page
NOAA 2014 What is sonar? 6 February 2015 [Online]. Available: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sonar.html
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B. E RogowitzL. A Treinish 1995 Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color? 16 March 2015 [Online]. Available: http://www.research.ibm.com/people/l/lloydt/color/color.HTM
L SandersP. J Stappers 2014 Editorial CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts 10 1 1 4
D. A Schön 1991 The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action Aldershot, UK Ashgate
E. R Tufte 1990 Envisioning Information Cheshire, CT, USA Graphics Press
E. R Tufte 2001 The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Cheshire, CT, USA Graphics Press
C Ware 2000 Information Visualization: Perception for Design San Francisco, CA, USA Morgan Kaufmann
N Yau 2013 Data Points: Visualization That Means Something Indianapolis, IN, USA Wiley

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] ADUS DeepOcean 2013 Costa Concordia 10 March 2015 [Online]. Available: http://www.adusdeepocean.com/sectors/salvage/costa-concordia/

[2] D BorlandR. M Taylor 2007 Rainbow Color Map (Still) Considered Harmful IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 27 14 17

[3] C Campbell 2014 The Reason We Can’t Find MH 370 Is That We’re Basically Blind 10 March 2015 [Online]. TIME. Available: http://time.com/67705/mh370-ocean-oceanography-sonar-exploration/

[4] D Cox P FISHWICK 2006 Metaphorical Mappings: The Art of Visualization Aesthetic Computing Cambridge, MA, US MIT Press

[5] M DeanM. J LawrenceD Schwall 2010 A new, accurate shipwreck survey method used during the wreck removal operations of the New Flam International Tug and Salvage Convention, 2010 Bradford on Avon UK ABR Company Limited

[6] S Few 2012 Show Me The Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten Burlingame, CA, USA Analytics Press

[7] S Few M. A. D SOEGAARDRIKKE FRIIS 2013 Data visualization for human perception The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction 2nd Aarhus, Denmark The Interaction Design Foundation

[8] V Friedman 2007 Data visualization: Modern approaches Smashing Magazine 14 April 2014 [Online]. Available: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/02/data-visualization-modern-approaches/

[9] I Gwilt, A YoxallK Sano 2012 Enhancing the understanding of statistical data through the creation of physical objects The 2nd International Conference on Design Creativity (Proceedings) 117 126

[10] JACC 2015 10 March 2015 MH370 Operational Search Update – 5 March 2015 [Online]. Available: http://www.jacc.gov.au/families/operational_reports/opsearch-update-20150305.aspx

[11] A Kirk 2012 Data Visualization: A Successful Design Process Birmingham, UK Packt Publishing

[12] R Kosara 2008 What is Visualization? A Definition 11 March 2015 [Online]. Available: https://eagereyes.org/criticism/definition-of-visualization

[13] J McKernan 1996 Curriculum Action Research: A Handbook of Methods and Resources for the Reflective Practitioner London, UK Kogan Page

[14] NOAA 2014 What is sonar? 6 February 2015 [Online]. Available: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sonar.html

[15] J. C RobertsP. D RitsosS. K BadamD BrodbeckJ KennedyN Elmqvist 2014 Visualization beyond the Desktop--the Next Big Thing IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 34 26 34

[16] B. E RogowitzL. A Treinish 1995 Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color? 16 March 2015 [Online]. Available: http://www.research.ibm.com/people/l/lloydt/color/color.HTM

[17] L SandersP. J Stappers 2014 Editorial CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts 10 1 1 4

[18] D. A Schön 1991 The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action Aldershot, UK Ashgate

[19] E. R Tufte 1990 Envisioning Information Cheshire, CT, USA Graphics Press

[20] E. R Tufte 2001 The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Cheshire, CT, USA Graphics Press

[21] C Ware 2000 Information Visualization: Perception for Design San Francisco, CA, USA Morgan Kaufmann

[22] N Yau 2013 Data Points: Visualization That Means Something Indianapolis, IN, USA Wiley