Browsing by Author "Hadwiger, Markus"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Barrio: Customizable Spatial Neighborhood Analysis and Comparison for Nanoscale Brain Structures
    (The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2022) Troidl, Jakob; Cali, Corrado; Gröller, Eduard; Pfister, Hanspeter; Hadwiger, Markus; Beyer, Johanna; Borgo, Rita; Marai, G. Elisabeta; Schreck, Tobias
    High-resolution electron microscopy imaging allows neuroscientists to reconstruct not just entire cells but individual cell substructures (i.e., cell organelles) as well. Based on these data, scientists hope to get a better understanding of brain function and development through detailed analysis of local organelle neighborhoods. In-depth analyses require efficient and scalable comparison of a varying number of cell organelles, ranging from two to hundreds of local spatial neighborhoods. Scientists need to be able to analyze the 3D morphologies of organelles, their spatial distributions and distances, and their spatial correlations. We have designed Barrio as a configurable framework that scientists can adjust to their preferred workflow, visualizations, and supported user interactions for their specific tasks and domain questions. Furthermore, Barrio provides a scalable comparative visualization approach for spatial neighborhoods that automatically adjusts visualizations based on the number of structures to be compared. Barrio supports small multiples of spatial 3D views as well as abstract quantitative views, and arranges them in linked and juxtaposed views. To adapt to new domain-specific analysis scenarios, we allow the definition of individualized visualizations and their parameters for each analysis session. We present an in-depth case study for mitochondria analysis in neuronal tissue and demonstrate the usefulness of Barrio in a qualitative user study with neuroscientists.
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    Doppler Volume Rendering: A Dynamic, Piecewise Linear Spectral Representation for Visualizing Astrophysics Simulations
    (The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2023) Alghamdi, Reem; Müller, Thomas; Jaspe-Villanueva, Alberto; Hadwiger, Markus; Sadlo, Filip; Bujack, Roxana; Archambault, Daniel; Schreck, Tobias
    We present a novel approach for rendering volumetric data including the Doppler effect of light. Similar to the acoustic Doppler effect, which is caused by relative motion between a sound emitter and an observer, light waves also experience compression or expansion when emitter and observer exhibit relative motion. We account for this by employing spectral volume rendering in an emission-absorption model, with the volumetric matter moving according to an accompanying vector field, and emitting and attenuating light at wavelengths subject to the Doppler effect. By introducing a novel piecewise linear representation of the involved light spectra, we achieve accurate volume rendering at interactive frame rates. We compare our technique to rendering with traditional point-based spectral representation, and demonstrate its utility using a simulation of galaxy formation.
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    Immersive Environment for Creating, Proofreading, and Exploring Skeletons of Nanometric Scale Neural Structures
    (The Eurographics Association, 2019) Boges, Daniya; Calì, Corrado; Magistretti, Pierre J.; Hadwiger, Markus; Sicat, Ronell; Agus, Marco; Agus, Marco and Corsini, Massimiliano and Pintus, Ruggero
    We present a novel immersive environment for the exploratory analysis of nanoscale cellular reconstructions of rodent brain samples acquired through electron microscopy. The system is focused on medial axis representations (skeletons) of branched and tubular structures of brain cells, and it is specifically designed for: i) effective semi-automatic creation of skeletons from surface-based representations of cells and structures, ii) fast proofreading, i.e., correcting and editing of semi-automatically constructed skeleton representations, and iii) useful exploration, i.e., measuring, comparing, and analyzing geometric features related to cellular structures based on medial axis representations. The application runs in a standard PC-tethered virtual reality (VR) setup with a head mounted display (HMD), controllers, and tracking sensors. The system is currently used by neuroscientists for performing morphology studies on sparse reconstructions of glial cells and neurons extracted from a sample of the somatosensory cortex of a juvenile rat.
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    Interactive Volumetric Visual Analysis of Glycogen-derived Energy Absorption in Nanometric Brain Structures
    (The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2019) Agus, Marco; Calì, Corrado; Al-Awami, Ali K.; Gobbetti, Enrico; Magistretti, Pierre J.; Hadwiger, Markus; Gleicher, Michael and Viola, Ivan and Leitte, Heike
    Digital acquisition and processing techniques are changing the way neuroscience investigation is carried out. Emerging applications range from statistical analysis on image stacks to complex connectomics visual analysis tools targeted to develop and test hypotheses of brain development and activity. In this work, we focus on neuroenergetics, a field where neuroscientists analyze nanoscale brain morphology and relate energy consumption to glucose storage in form of glycogen granules. In order to facilitate the understanding of neuroenergetic mechanisms, we propose a novel customized pipeline for the visual analysis of nanometric-level reconstructions based on electron microscopy image data. Our framework supports analysis tasks by combining i) a scalable volume visualization architecture able to selectively render image stacks and corresponding labelled data, ii) a method for highlighting distance-based energy absorption probabilities in form of glow maps, and iii) a hybrid connectivitybased and absorption-based interactive layout representation able to support queries for selective analysis of areas of interest and potential activity within the segmented datasets. This working pipeline is currently used in a variety of studies in the neuroenergetics domain. Here, we discuss a test case in which the framework was successfully used by domain scientists for the analysis of aging effects on glycogen metabolism, extracting knowledge from a series of nanoscale brain stacks of rodents somatosensory cortex.
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    The State of the Art in Visual Analysis Approaches for Ocean and Atmospheric Datasets
    (The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2019) Afzal, Shehzad; Hittawe, Mohamad Mazen; Ghani, Sohaib; Jamil, Tahira; Knio, Omar; Hadwiger, Markus; Hoteit, Ibrahim; Laramee, Robert S. and Oeltze, Steffen and Sedlmair, Michael
    The analysis of ocean and atmospheric datasets offers a unique set of challenges to scientists working in different application areas. These challenges include dealing with extremely large volumes of multidimensional data, supporting interactive visual analysis, ensembles exploration and visualization, exploring model sensitivities to inputs, mesoscale ocean features analysis, predictive analytics, heterogeneity and complexity of observational data, representing uncertainty, and many more. Researchers across disciplines collaborate to address such challenges, which led to significant research and development advances in ocean and atmospheric sciences, and also in several relevant areas such as visualization and visual analytics, big data analytics, machine learning and statistics. In this report, we perform an extensive survey of research advances in the visual analysis of ocean and atmospheric datasets. First, we survey the task requirements by conducting interviews with researchers, domain experts, and end users working with these datasets on a spectrum of analytics problems in the domain of ocean and atmospheric sciences. We then discuss existing models and frameworks related to data analysis, sense-making, and knowledge discovery for visual analytics applications. We categorize the techniques, systems, and tools presented in the literature based on the taxonomies of task requirements, interaction methods, visualization techniques, machine learning and statistical methods, evaluation methods, data types, data dimensions and size, spatial scale and application areas. We then evaluate the task requirements identified based on our interviews with domain experts in the context of categorized research based on our taxonomies, and existing models and frameworks of visual analytics to determine the extent to which they fulfill these task requirements, and identify the gaps in current research. In the last part of this report, we summarize the trends, challenges, and opportunities for future research in this area.
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    A Survey of Visualization and Analysis in High-Resolution Connectomics
    (The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2022) Beyer, Johanna; Troidl, Jakob; Boorboor, Saeed; Hadwiger, Markus; Kaufman, Arie; Pfister, Hanspeter; Bruckner, Stefan; Turkay, Cagatay; Vrotsou, Katerina
    The field of connectomics aims to reconstruct the wiring diagram of neurons and synapses to enable new insights into the workings of the brain. Reconstructing and analyzing the neuronal connectivity, however, relies on many individual steps, starting from high-resolution data acquisition to automated segmentation, proofreading, interactive data exploration, and circuit analysis. All of these steps have to handle large and complex datasets and rely on or benefit from integrated visualization methods. In this state-of-the-art report, we describe visualization methods that can be applied throughout the connectomics pipeline, from data acquisition to circuit analysis. We first define the different steps of the pipeline and focus on how visualization is currently integrated into these steps. We also survey open science initiatives in connectomics, including usable open-source tools and publicly available datasets. Finally, we discuss open challenges and possible future directions of this exciting research field.
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    Thin-Volume Visualization on Curved Domains
    (The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2021) Herter, Felix; Hege, Hans-Christian; Hadwiger, Markus; Lepper, Verena; Baum, Daniel; Borgo, Rita and Marai, G. Elisabeta and Landesberger, Tatiana von
    Thin, curved structures occur in many volumetric datasets. Their analysis using classical volume rendering is difficult because parts of such structures can bend away or hide behind occluding elements. This problem cannot be fully compensated by effective navigation alone, as structure-adapted navigation in the volume is cumbersome and only parts of the structure are visible in each view. We solve this problem by rendering a spatially transformed view of the volume so that an unobstructed visualization of the entire curved structure is obtained. As a result, simple and intuitive navigation becomes possible. The domain of the spatial transform is defined by a triangle mesh that is topologically equivalent to an open disc and that approximates the structure of interest. The rendering is based on ray-casting, in which the rays traverse the original volume. In order to carve out volumes of varying thicknesses, the lengths of the rays as well as the positions of the mesh vertices can be easily modified by interactive painting under view control. We describe a prototypical implementation and demonstrate the interactive visual inspection of complex structures from digital humanities, biology, medicine, and material sciences. The visual representation of the structure as a whole allows for easy inspection of interesting substructures in their original spatial context. Overall, we show that thin, curved structures in volumetric data can be excellently visualized using ray-casting-based volume rendering of transformed views defined by guiding surface meshes, supplemented by interactive, local modifications of ray lengths and vertex positions.
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    VICE: Visual Identification and Correction of Neural Circuit Errors
    (The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2021) Gonda, Felix; Wang, Xueying; Beyer, Johanna; Hadwiger, Markus; Lichtman, Jeff W.; Pfister, Hanspeter; Borgo, Rita and Marai, G. Elisabeta and Landesberger, Tatiana von
    A connectivity graph of neurons at the resolution of single synapses provides scientists with a tool for understanding the nervous system in health and disease. Recent advances in automatic image segmentation and synapse prediction in electron microscopy (EM) datasets of the brain have made reconstructions of neurons possible at the nanometer scale. However, automatic segmentation sometimes struggles to segment large neurons correctly, requiring human effort to proofread its output. General proofreading involves inspecting large volumes to correct segmentation errors at the pixel level, a visually intensive and time-consuming process. This paper presents the design and implementation of an analytics framework that streamlines proofreading, focusing on connectivity-related errors. We accomplish this with automated likely-error detection and synapse clustering that drives the proofreading effort with highly interactive 3D visualizations. In particular, our strategy centers on proofreading the local circuit of a single cell to ensure a basic level of completeness. We demonstrate our framework's utility with a user study and report quantitative and subjective feedback from our users. Overall, users find the framework more efficient for proofreading, understanding evolving graphs, and sharing error correction strategies.