A discussion on simulations' visualization usage

2017

Information visualization is the study of interactive visual representations of abstract data to reinforce human cognition. Most existing visualization techniques are not suited to explore and understand datasets from heterogeneous and complex sources. Assuming that agent-based models properly represent the complexity of a real system, we propose to use an approach based on the definition of an agent-based model to facilitate visual representation of simulation outputs and complex data. These concepts have been implemented in the GAMA modeling and simulation platform, in which we developed a 3D immersive environment offering the user different points of view and ways to interact. We implemented models chosen for their properties to support a linear progression in terms of complexity to test their flexibility, modularity, and adaptability. Finally, we demonstrate through the particular case of data visualization, how our approach allows us, in real time, to represent, clarify, or eve...

Computer-Aided Design, 2005

Computer simulations are powerful tools frequently used today in many important applications, for example to build safer buildings, to crash-test an automobile before it is built, to stabilize the Pisa tower, to design artificial joints that are comfortable and durable, or to investigate what-if scenarios to avoid and best recover from natural or man-made disasters. The simulation codes have reached a very highlevel of sophistication and, by running on powerful computing machinery, can accurately track with infinitesimal time steps dozens of physical properties of millions of interacting elements under extreme conditions. In order to take fully advantage of the bounty of information concealed in the data produced, visualization is a uniquely powerful tool since it caters to the sense that provides our highest bandwidth connection to the surrounding world.

NoemaLab, online, 13 December 2009, http://noemalab.eu/ideas/editorial/simulation-as-a-global-resource/; Also published in Spanish in TinTank, magazine online, http://www.tintank.es/?p=223, 2009

The idea of “simulation” is a very intriguing issue. Simulation is often at the core of representation, storytelling, communication and creation, and has many levels of “perfection”. The historical media simulate what we use to call “reality”: paintings, photography, cinema, video... Computer technology refers to simulation too, although it adds chances which are not allowed in the real world (like for instance the copy/paste action). The interfaces of the most popular computer’s operative systems simulate the desktop in order to be more intuitive. The computer programs for writing and desktop publishing simulate the paper page, the 2D applications for painting or drawing simulate the canvas and the effects of the painting/drawing techniques. The software applications for creating 3D images simulate a 3D space onto the 2D space of the computer screen (using the same, although simplified, rules of the Renaissance perspective), and simulate the light behaviour, the appearance of the matter, the physics of the “real world”... The audiovisual cinematic media not only simulate by means of the images, but also through the movement (frames per second) and the sound space (stereophony, quadriphony, holophony). The technological media are based on simulation: 3D computer image/animation, 3D cinema, holography, virtual reality, flight simulators, 3D computer games, the metaverse... simulate some aspects of reality and create new worlds. In order to enhance communication and creation it seems crucial to represent or create in a way which is based on the simulation of some issues of the “real”. The symbolic communication relies on simulation. But simulation seems working at many levels. In science we build models which simulate the phenomena in order to understand, describe and/or communicate them. Many disciplines simulate nature and life. Artificial Intelligence started simulating some aspects of the human symbolic intelligence and reproduce them in the machines. Artificial Life simulates the basics of life, its principles, processes and evolution. Robotics build entities which simulate the behaviour of the living beings in the “real world”. Synthetic biology builds biological systems which do not exist in nature or artificially modifies existing ones, simulating nature. In biology the mirror neurons system, which is involved in social cognition, empathy, language, art, builds inner simulations of actions and behaviours, giving an internal insight of an external situation. And, in the year of Darwin, the natural selection, which is the process where the environment advantages the prolificity of some organisms instead of others, could be interpreted as a simulation-driven process: the survival of the fittest in that particular environment means the survival of the organisms which best reflect that environment’s features, that is the survival of the best simulation. So is simulation only a communication technique? Is it a way to create symbolic constructions in order to share information, ideas, artefacts, worlds? Is it a natural strategy of knowledge and consciousness too? Could it even be considered as a basic process in nature’s evolution?

2003

This paper describes the work of a team of researchers in computer graphics, geometric computing, and civil engineering to produce a visualization of the September 2001 lInack on the Pentagon. The immediate motivation for the project was \0 understand the behavior of the building under the impact The longer Icnn motjYation WlIS 10 establish 1I path for producing high-quality visualizations of large sl;lIlc simulations. The first challenge was managing the C!\ormous c:omplcxily of the scene \0 fit within the limits ofslalc-{)f-the an simulalion software systems lUld supercomputing resources. The sCl;ond challenge was to intcgrotc the simulation n:sults into II hish-qualily visualiZilrion. To meet Ihis challenge, we implemented a custom importer that simplifies and loads the massive simulation data in a commercial unimalion system. The surrounding scene is modeled using

2011

An overview of the research activities of a university simulation laboratory is presented. The mission of the laboratory is to anticipate the design and to support the evaluation process of urban design projects from a perceptual viewpoint through the use of digital and physical models. We have research and educational purposes. Founded five years ago, the laboratory has implemented different simulation tools, often combining existing techniques and finding new applications of existing ones. In particular, we focused our interest on visual perception tools, investigating the use of physical models and digital ones, and combining them in different ways in order to enhance the experience offered by the perceptual simulation.