Conveying a Sense of Scale in 3D Planetary Environments

Information

• Publication Type: Bachelor Thesis
• Workgroup(s)/Project(s):
  • Visualization Group
• Date: May 2019
• Date (Start): 10. December 2018
• Date (End): 5. May 2019
• Matrikelnummer: 00510453
• First Supervisor: Eduard Gröller

Abstract

3D visualizations of Mars enable scientists to explore the Martian surface in great detail and play an essential role in planetary science, mission planning, and the communication of scientific findings. Due to the unfamiliar environment depicted in these visualizations, conveying a sense of scale is necessary. In this thesis, we characterize the problem space of conveying scale in 3D visualizations of Mars projected onto a 2D screen and design representations that satisfy the requirements of specific use cases. We discuss challenges posed by different types of scale, magnitudes of scale, use cases, and levels of expertise. The designed representations include scale-bars, scale-boxes, known-object comparison, true-layer-thickness, contour-lines, vertical exaggeration, distance shading, and landing ellipses. We received informal feedback for each representation from a planetary scientist and conducted an experiment for known-object comparison with 20 non-experts. The feedback suggests that our representations are capable of conveying a sense of scale in 3D visualizations of Mars for their specific use cases.

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BibTeX

@bachelorsthesis{Riegelnegg_2019,
  title =      "Conveying a Sense of Scale in 3D Planetary Environments",
  author =     "Martin Riegelnegg",
  year =       "2019",
  abstract =   "3D visualizations of Mars enable scientists to explore the
               Martian surface in great detail and play an essential role
               in planetary science, mission planning, and the
               communication of scientific findings. Due to the unfamiliar
               environment depicted in these visualizations, conveying a
               sense of scale is necessary. In this thesis, we characterize
               the problem space of conveying scale in 3D visualizations of
               Mars projected onto a 2D screen and design representations
               that satisfy the  requirements of specific use cases. We
               discuss challenges posed by different types of scale,
               magnitudes of scale, use cases, and levels of expertise. The
               designed representations include scale-bars, scale-boxes,
               known-object comparison, true-layer-thickness,
               contour-lines, vertical exaggeration, distance shading, and
               landing ellipses. We received informal feedback for each
               representation from a planetary scientist and conducted an
               experiment for known-object comparison with 20 non-experts.
               The feedback suggests that our representations are capable
               of  conveying a sense of scale in 3D visualizations of Mars
               for their specific use cases.",
  month =      may,
  address =    "Favoritenstrasse 9-11/E193-02, A-1040 Vienna, Austria",
  school =     "Research Unit of Computer Graphics, Institute of Visual
               Computing and Human-Centered Technology, Faculty of
               Informatics, TU Wien ",
  URL =        "https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2019/Riegelnegg_2019/",
}