Visual Exploration, Analysis, and Communication of Physiological Processes

Abstract

Describing the myriad biological processes occurring in living beings over time, the science of physiology is complex and critical to our understanding of how life works. Physiology spans many spatio-temporal scales to combine and bridge from the basic sciences (biology, physics, and chemistry) to medicine. Recent years have seen an explosion of new and finer-grained experimental and acquisition methods to characterize these data. The volume and complexity of these data necessitate effective visualizations to complement standard analysis practice. Visualization approaches must carefully consider and be adaptable to the user’s main task, be it exploratory, analytical, or communication-oriented. This research contributes to the areas of theory, empirical findings, methods, applications, and research replicability in visualizing physiology. Our overarching theme is the cross-disciplinary application of medical illustration and visualization techniques to address challenges in exploring, analyzing, and communicating aspects of human physiology to audiences with differing expertise.