Living Liquid is a collaboration with the Exploratorium and the Darwin Project to create an interactive exhibit showing the growth and localization of phytoplankton in the world’s oceans.
Phytoplankton are microscopic autotrophs, responsible for half of the world’s oxygen production. Visualizations of an ocean circulation model and a plankton simulation are combined with object-based and touch interactions to allow users to explore and investigate plankton populations all over the world. The exhibit is currently on display in the life science section of the Exploratorium.
Paper:
Joyce Ma, Isaac Liao, Kwan-Liu Ma, Jennifer Frazier.
Living Liquid: Design and Evaluation of an Exploratory Visualization Tool for Museum Visitors. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 18(12): 2799-2808 (2012) pdf
Animations:
Phytoplankton Exploration 1
Media Coverage:
New York Times
ABC7 News coverage of Exploratorium re-opening
Fast Company
ABC7 News interview with Jennifer Frazier
Personnel:
Exploratorium, San Francisco
Exploratorium, San Francisco
Darwin Project, MIT
Darwin Project, MIT
Computer Science, UC Davis
Computer Science, UC Davis