Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
with well-specified and maintained immersive and semi-immersive environments. So with
the expansion in number of these centres there has also been an attempt to extend and control
the level of 'presence' achieved, and thus aid a user to effectively explore and understand
their own data sets.
Visualizations also have the unfortunate ability to optically trick and fool users, which
neurobiologists and even artists have known and used for a long time. We will explore in
this chapter a few examples of how increasing awareness in a controlled manner can and
has created better ways to describe space and localization with minimal visual confusion.
Most people have heard the saying that 'a picture describes a thousand words', but to quote
Hewitt
et al
. (2005), to countless students, what a good visualization requires is a 'thousand
words to describe it'.
To illustrate some best practice in displaying visualizations within large purpose-built
centres we will first describe the human visual system and some of the illusions that are
inherent. Then, illustrated with relevant examples, we will consider only a few of the different
visualization systems that are available and importantly some of the modes they can be
operated in. Remembering the limitations of the human visual system, we wish to finally
explain how textural or aural descriptions are required, in fact we believe essential, for
effective geographic visualization.
11.2 The human visual system
In order to understand visualization and immersive technologies that try to cover the com-
plete visual experience, we will first step back and analyse the human visual system. De-
pending on the reference, approximately one-third of the human brain is involved with the
processing of visual input (Oyster, 2006). Therefore, to transmit a large amount of infor-
mation, using visual stimuli can be one of the most efficient methods. Schroeder, Martin
and Lorensen (2006, chapter 1) summarized this as:
visualisation is the transformation of data or information into pictures. Visualisa-
tion engages the primal human sensory apparatus, vision, as well as the processing
power of the human mind. The result is a simple and effective medium for com-
municating complex and/or voluminous information.
With the continual increase in resolution of capturing devices, the flow of raw data has be-
come larger and larger and the role of appropriate visualization more important. In fact the
quantities of data being produced by simulations of physical, natural and theoretical prob-
lems are, for example, frequently so large that graphical representations offer the only viable
way for researchers to assimilate them. Immersive systems therefore must be considered,
as well as the way the visual system will perceive them. The psychologist Alcock (Alcock,
Burns and Freeman, 2003) described our brain as a 'belief engine' - constantly processing
information from our senses and then creating an ever-changing belief system about the
world we live in. We will next consider the route a photon of light takes to become a known
signal, which is used to help create a specific belief, as well as how this simple transformation
process from light to data can lead to misinformation and a false belief.
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