Most visualization software developers have "absolutely missed the boat," according to Dr. Creve Maples, head of Sandia National Laboratories' Synthetic Environment Laboratory (Albuquerque, NM) and developer of a unique visualization interface, called MUSE (Multidimensional, User-oriented, Synthetic Environment). He's referring to the lack of consideration paid to the fundamentals of human perceptual processes in favor of focusing on purely technical issues. "It is not technology, it is not computers, and it is not graphics that are important [to visualization]. You need to start out by understanding what the mind does with information. If you don't know how the mind processes data, then you're missing the most effective way of communicating complex computer-based information."
On the other hand, MUSE, a device-independent software shell, exploits human cognitive processes. The system fuses disparate types of data from any number of sources (numerical simulations, digital imagery, audio signals, and so forth) and envelopes it in an environment that "gently bathes the senses in information," says Maples. The critical component, he says, is that it works the way the human mind works. "Every moment of your life, your mind processes an enormous volume of information. But you don't do it consciously. If you can supply complex information in a manner in which your mind is already used to dealing with it, your bandwidth soars."
MUSE plays to the fact that humans'attention is diverted by things that are unusual or different. "Think of driving in your car. The engine is loud, but you don't really hear it because you're used to it. If all of a sudden you start hearing a 'ping' or a knock in the engine, your senses are alerted because there's a break in the pattern." MUSE relies on the same principle, using visual, auditory, or kinesthetic representations to alert users to aberrations in normal patterns.
As an example of the effectiveness of this approach, Maples cites a recent case where Sandia researchers who were working on a collaborative R&D project with the Goodyear Tire Company asked for a MUSE simulation of their data (a supercomputer-generated simulation) for an upcoming meeting with Goodyear managers. "We brought the information up on the system in about a day and a half, then called the researchers and said, 'I think you ought to come see this.' Within 60 seconds, they found a major error that had been there for a year and a half," says Maples. The visualization looked at shear and pressure differentials from the perspective of the interior of a tire. In the MUSE simulation, a small, diamond-shaped pattern emerged amid the otherwise smooth curves. "[The researchers] pulled over to the pattern, took it apart, and manipulated it. They found that the steel band that goes around the rim of the tire had been modeled incorrectly. When they corrected the model, the results were dramatic on the shear forces of the thing. The next day, we got a call saying that Goodyear wanted to duplicate the MUSE system."
Although it's still considered an R & D project, MUSE has been applied to dozens of real-world datasets -the more complex, the better, says Maples- representing applications as diverse as medical imaging, fluid dynamics, mechanical design and assembly, planetary exploration, and seismic analysis. - DPM