TY - JOUR
T1 - The DeepTree exhibit
T2 - Visualizing the tree of life to facilitate informal learning
AU - Block, Florian
AU - Horn, Michael S.
AU - Phillips, Brenda Caldwell
AU - Diamond, Judy
AU - Evans, E. Margaret
AU - Shen, Chia
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the Harvard Museum of Natural History, for allowing us to conduct this research in their galleries. We also thank our science advisers: Gonzalo Giribets, James Hanken, Hopi E. Hoekstra, Jonathan Losos, David Mindell, and Mark Westneat. Thanks to Sebastian Velez for selecting our signpost species and for his constructive feedback. We thank the National Science Foundation for their support of this project (DRL-1010889). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - In this paper, we present the DeepTree exhibit, a multi-user, multi-touch interactive visualization of the Tree of Life. We developed DeepTree to facilitate collaborative learning of evolutionary concepts. We will describe an iterative process in which a team of computer scientists, learning scientists, biologists, and museum curators worked together throughout design, development, and evaluation. We present the importance of designing the interactions and the visualization hand-in-hand in order to facilitate active learning. The outcome of this process is a fractal-based tree layout that reduces visual complexity while being able to capture all life on earth; a custom rendering and navigation engine that prioritizes visual appeal and smooth fly-through; and a multi-user interface that encourages collaborative exploration while offering guided discovery. We present an evaluation showing that the large dataset encouraged free exploration, triggers emotional responses, and facilitates visitor engagement and informal learning.
AB - In this paper, we present the DeepTree exhibit, a multi-user, multi-touch interactive visualization of the Tree of Life. We developed DeepTree to facilitate collaborative learning of evolutionary concepts. We will describe an iterative process in which a team of computer scientists, learning scientists, biologists, and museum curators worked together throughout design, development, and evaluation. We present the importance of designing the interactions and the visualization hand-in-hand in order to facilitate active learning. The outcome of this process is a fractal-based tree layout that reduces visual complexity while being able to capture all life on earth; a custom rendering and navigation engine that prioritizes visual appeal and smooth fly-through; and a multi-user interface that encourages collaborative exploration while offering guided discovery. We present an evaluation showing that the large dataset encouraged free exploration, triggers emotional responses, and facilitates visitor engagement and informal learning.
KW - Informal science education
KW - collaborative learning
KW - large tree visualizations
KW - multi-touch interaction
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U2 - 10.1109/TVCG.2012.272
DO - 10.1109/TVCG.2012.272
M3 - Article
C2 - 26357188
AN - SCOPUS:84867650279
SN - 1077-2626
VL - 18
SP - 2789
EP - 2798
JO - IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
JF - IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
IS - 12
M1 - 6327285
ER -