Data-driven animations of marine mammals combine biology, art, and computation

In her archetypal twelvemonth arsenic a postgraduate pupil successful ecology and evolutionary biology astatine UC Santa Cruz, Jessica Kendall-Bar began moving arsenic a freelance creator and started reasoning astir however to integrate her creation and subject much intentionally. Four years later, her enactment connected animations to assistance scientists pass their findings has led to the improvement of a almighty acceptable of tools and procedures for generating realistic, data-driven animations of carnal behavior.

In a insubstantial presented astatine this year's IEEE Visualization Conference (October 24 to 29), Kendall-Bar showed however these animations not lone assistance scientists convey their findings to different scientists and the public, but tin besides assistance them marque consciousness of their data.

"By animating a three-dimensional exemplary with data, we tin simultaneously show respective antithetic information streams. This makes it easier and faster to admit important patterns successful the data," she said.

For decades, marine mammal researchers person been utilizing progressively blase tags to way animals and grounds their movements and diving behavior, seizure video, and adjacent grounds physiological information specified arsenic heart rates. Kendall-Bar's thesis probe explores caller techniques for monitoring slumber successful chaotic marine mammals.

In 2019, she offered to bash an animation for a researcher whose presumption connected humpback whale feeding behaviour she had seen astatine a technological conference. "He had a spectacular video of 3 whales feeding cooperatively astatine the bottommost of the sea, but it was truly hard to spot what they were doing," she recalled. "The speech generated a immense magnitude of involvement astatine the conference, with hundreds of radical squinting and craning their necks to decipher what was happening successful the video."

Credit: University of California - Santa Cruz

The animation she produced for the whale researcher, NOAA idiosyncratic David Wiley astatine the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, not lone shows the humpback feeding behaviour much intelligibly than the video did, it besides includes a simulated schoolhouse of prey food with scientifically close behavior, and shows however ropeless exertion for lobster traps tin trim the hazard of whale entanglements.

Subsequent projects person grown progressively blase successful their usage of data-driven animations. Working with Roxanne Beltran, adjunct prof of ecology and evolutionary biology astatine UCSC, Kendall-Bar developed an animation showing however enactment patterns successful pistillate elephant seals changed successful the people of their seven-month foraging travel (see 'lightscapes of fear').

"As we drafted our manuscript, Jessie's creator skills helped america spot our dataset from an wholly caller perspective," said Beltran, noting that the animation helped propel the insubstantial into the nationalist eye, with implicit 100,000 views connected Twitter. "In the epoch of large data, we request much crossover betwixt creation and science. The creation tin pass the science, and the subject tin pass the art."

Another elephant seal video was developed with Gitte McDonald astatine Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and Daniel Costa, manager of the Institute of Marine Sciences astatine UCSC. This 3D animation visualizes the swimming behaviour and bosom complaint of a seal arsenic it dives, demonstrating the fearfulness effect caused by the dependable of a slayer whale, an important elephant seal predator.

The 4th animation described successful the insubstantial is based connected narwhal probe led by Terrie Williams, prof of ecology and evolutionary biology astatine UCSC. It shows the swimming behaviour and bosom complaint of a narwhal aft merchandise from nett entanglement successful East Greenland and highlights the narwhal's paradoxical fearfulness effect involving a precise debased bosom complaint during accelerated swimming strokes (see "Heart monitors connected chaotic narwhals uncover alarming responses to stress').

"In these 4 projects, we integrated the information into narrated animations designed to scope peculiar audiences, including different scientists arsenic good arsenic educating the nationalist oregon argumentation makers and radical who mightiness assistance execute a conservation outcome," Kendall-Bar said.

In summation to the marine mammal researchers, the collaborations besides progressive Angus Forbes, subordinate prof of computational media successful the Baskin School of Engineering, who has expertise successful information visualization.

"Jessica's data-driven animations efficaciously pass technological results and supply penetration into the galore steps progressive successful achieving those results," Forbes said. "Her probe into caller forms of ocular connection benefits scientists moving connected interdisciplinary projects and helps to summation engagement with the wide public."

Kendall-Bar has created an online learning halfway that provides an open-source codification repository and step-by-step tutorials and workshops for scientists funny successful utilizing graphic design, animation, and different ocular connection tools. She has besides helped thatch workshops and courses connected information visualization astatine UC Santa Cruz, moving with the OpenLab Network and module successful the Art Department and the Computational Media Department.

"The film industry has created almighty tools for animation, and we should beryllium taking vantage of those tools for science," she said. "These animations bring unneurotic biologists, artists, and machine scientists for interdisciplinary collaborations that beforehand each field. I deliberation we should beryllium moving unneurotic much often."

---

---

More information: Visualizing Life successful the Deep: A Creative Pipeline for Data-Driven Animations to Facilitate Marine Mammal Research, Outreach, and Conservation. ieeevis.b-cdn.net/vis_2021/pdfs/a-visap-1031.pdf