Data Physicalization

***Data Visualization Across the Extended Reality***

Data physicalization brings data off the screen and into the physical world, transforming abstract variables into forms that can be touched, turned, and explored. By encoding data into geometry, material, and spatial relationships, physicalizations tap into human perceptual strengths, depth awareness, and multisensory engagement to reveal patterns that digital displays often flatten or obscure. This strategy helps foster curiosity and public engagement. It invites people to interact with climate information in ways that feel intuitive and personal, turning data into a shared, tangible experience that encourages reflection, dialogue, and deeper connection to environmental change.

Image Description ~ These examples, also handcrafted or arranged by an artist, explore how material could be manipulated along a line, such as a streamline in a fluid flow visualization. Note how variation within a single material might be controlled in ways that can also be associated intuitively with climate data and processes.

Physical Representations of Data

Antarctica: Looking through the Ice into the Past ~ a collaboration with COLDEX scientists, Duncan Young and Shivangini Singh, UTIG, UT Austin. Their work focuses on studying the structure of the ice below the surface, revealing how it has flowed, deformed, and interacted with the landscape hidden underneath over millions of years. One of their primary goals is to locate regions where the oldest continuous ice has remained preserved. To support this mission, TACC’s visualization team reviewed the data and visualizations collected by the scientists and printed them as a 3D model. Vimeo video

Submission for the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC26)

Mertz Glacial Tongue Coast ~ Interactive exploration of data via 3D physical environmental models holds promise for enhancing the exploration of geoscience data. While it looks science fiction, techniques are being developed to further enable these types of interactive data interfaces. Details and progress available at: https://sites.utexas.edu/artscivis/ and https://ivlab.cs.umn.edu/.

Gulf of Mexico Model ~ Artist mockups to explore the role of physical material for encoding multi-field, climate-science simulations. Left Image ~ Applied to understanding biogeochemistry in the Gulf of Mexico and exploring partitioning data to be printed in sub-volumes. Right Image ~ VR Environment

Interviewing Greenland’s Ice Sheet ~ presents five specific events in the history of the Greenland’s ice sheet. “Interviews” is a multimodal art installation that seeks to provide viewers with an embodied understanding of glacial change. Although artists and scientists often work together for a visual rendering of scientific concepts and information, rarely do the two come together in a such a close-knit, equal collaboration, in which the germination of the idea and the weaving together of art and science result in an oeuvre in which the scientist explains the science to the artist and the artist gives the artistic view of the science itself, allowing the public to enter the art in order to see the science. The data remains the same, with two different media providing different interpretive perspectives.

Object Encoding

Data Visualization Across the Extended Reality ~ Each of these examples was handcrafted or arranged by an artist. The wide range of points, lines, and forms demonstrates real, data-driven visualizations could be created with a visual haptic language like this one. One hypothesized benefit is that the contrast between different materials can be used to intuitively encode categorical data

Physicalization & Engagement

Bedrock ~ is an exhibit, bridging a scientific exploration of earth’s past with an immersive multimedia content providing an entry point into the curiosities and complexities of our changing planet.

Ice Archives: Amplifying Greenland’s Geologic Memory ~ The immersive, multi-sensory exhibition featuring glass and clay sculpture and projected visuals invites viewers to encounter the complexities of climate change through tactile forms, connection to the research sites, and images from below the ice sheet. Based on scientific observations, the data are transformed via an artistic voice, providing the opportunity for viewers to explore through science and metaphor while reflecting on the changes within this fragile landscape.