Ryan Wyatt | California Academy of Sciences (original) (raw)

Papers by Ryan Wyatt

arXiv: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, 2019

Astrophysics lies at the crossroads of big datasets (such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope ... more Astrophysics lies at the crossroads of big datasets (such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and Gaia), open source software to visualize and interpret high dimensional datasets (such as Glue, WorldWide Telescope, and OpenSpace), and uniquely skilled software engineers who bridge data science and research fields. At the same time, more than 4,000 planetariums across the globe immerse millions of visitors in scientific data. We have identified the potential for critical synergy across data, software, hardware, locations, and content that -- if prioritized over the next decade -- will drive discovery in astronomical research. Planetariums can and should be used for the advancement of scientific research. Current facilities such as the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Morrison Planetarium in San Francisco, the Iziko Planetarium and Digital Dome Research Consortium in Cape Town, and Visualization Center C in Norrkoping are already developing softwar...

Planetariums have traditionally been places where the public was taught about the sky and astroph... more Planetariums have traditionally been places where the public was taught about the sky and astrophysics in general. Today, the wide adaptation of virtual globes and web map services is contributing to a new understanding of our planet – anyone is now able to compare local maps to satellite views and global imagery. How can planetariums embrace this more detailed view of our planet as part of the universe we regularly offer, and how can we gain a leading role stimulating new impulses of earth science literacy among our patrons?

Planetarian 27 to the best of our knowledge, these have not been codified. In this first of a two... more Planetarian 27 to the best of our knowledge, these have not been codified. In this first of a two-part paper, we make an initial attempt at doing so by reviewing past precepts and identifying our own prescriptions. We describe the critical ways in which the fulldome medium is different from traditional film and what that means for the filmmaker. We briefly illustrate the history of pacing in feature Hollywood films, giant screen cinema, and fulldome films; how they have evolved over time; and their consequences for filmmaking. If we accept that fulldome films are a type of immersive cinema in which the audience feels they are experiencing what is shown on screen, then it is possible to create a new theoretical framework of cinematic language and techniques which parallel those in traditional framed film. We outline the key elements of such a system of thinking, and show some examples from films that accommodate this theory. Finally, a dome display gives more directions where visual ...

The Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL) is part of the the National Center for Supercomputing Applic... more The Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL) is part of the the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The AVL is led by Professor Donna Cox, who coined the term "Renaissance Team", with the belief that bringing together specialists of diverse backgrounds creates a team that is greater than the sum of its parts, and members of the AVL team reflect that in our interdisciplinarity. We specialize in creating high-quality cinematic scientific visualizations of supercomputer simulations for public outreach.

SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 Courses, 2019

The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) and the Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) st... more The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) and the Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) standard will give observatories and astronomers an easy way to distribute their astro-nomical visualisation products. The CAP2007 demonstration which is described here is an early, although fully functioning, proof-of-concept for the VAMP project showing the capabilities and functionalities of the AVM. Our hope is to encourage people to begin applying the AVM standard to their Education and Public Outreach (EPO) images as they witness the spectacular end results that applications like Stellarium, World Wide Telescope, and Sky in Google Earth can bring to the future. The demonstration tools A live demonstration was carried out at the CAP2007 as a proof-of-concept for the Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP)1 and the Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) stand-ard2 (Hurt et al., 2006). These two concepts are described in detail in Gauthier et al. (2007) and Hurt et al. (2007) elsewhere in this volume.

The Astrophysical Journal, 2012

We have determined the metallicity (O/H) and nitrogen abundance (N/O) of a sample of 122751 Star ... more We have determined the metallicity (O/H) and nitrogen abundance (N/O) of a sample of 122751 Star Forming Galaxies (SFGs) from the Data Release 7 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). For all these galaxies we have also determined their morphology and obtained a comprehensive picture of their Star Formation History (SFH) using the spectral synthesis code STARLIGHT. The comparison

capjournal.org

Obviously, the mission faced a tremendous challenge by not having great images from the get-go. I... more Obviously, the mission faced a tremendous challenge by not having great images from the get-go. Imagine for a moment that the predicted fifth-magnitude flash had been captured by amateurs throughout the Americas, populating Flickr and other sites with a multitude of images that ...

Communication Astronomy with the Public Journal, 2008

Figure 1. JMW Turner's The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835) represents the ... more Figure 1. JMW Turner's The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835) represents the Romantic image as it relates to the sublime in this case, rooted in a sense of terror, à la Edmund Burke. ... Visualising Astronomy: The Astronomical Image, Part Two

Visual representation of information is a fundamental tool for advancing our understanding of sci... more Visual representation of information is a fundamental tool for advancing our understanding of science. It enables the research community to extract new knowledge from complex datasets, and plays an equally vital role in communicating new results across a spectrum of public audiences. Visualizations which make research results accessible to the public have been popularized by the press, and are used in formal education, informal learning settings, and all aspects of lifelong learning. In particular, visualizations of astronomical data (hereafter astrovisualization or astroviz) have broadly captured the human imagination, and are in high demand. Astrovisualization practitioners need a wide variety of specialized skills and expertise spanning multiple disciplines (art, science, technology). As astrophysics research continues to evolve into a more data rich science, astroviz is also evolving from artists conceptions to data-driven visualizations, from two-dimensional images to three-dim...

The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) will enable access to, and vastly multiply the us... more The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) will enable access to, and vastly multiply the use of, astronomy image resources. VAMP will enable future innovative exploitation of all kinds of outreach media by systematically linking resource archives worldwide.

Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, May 1, 2008

The goal of the Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) is to promote and vastly multiply the... more The goal of the Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) is to promote and vastly multiply the use of astronomy multimedia resources&amp;#8212from images and illustrations to animations, movies, and podcasts&amp;#8212and enable innovative future exploitation of a wide variety of outreach media by systematically linking resource archives worldwide. High-quality astronomical images, accompanied by rich caption and background information, abound on the web

The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) represents a groundbreaking new resource for shar... more The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) represents a groundbreaking new resource for sharing and utilizing outreach imagery. Publication-quality imagery can be tagged following the Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) standard for encapsulating all of the key contextual information about each image (title, caption, image colors/composition, observatories, WCS projection, etc.). AVM-tagged imagery can be registered with the VAMP Archive, now in developoment

Communicating Astronomy With the Public, Jun 1, 2008

Epo and a Changing World Creating Linkages and Expanding Partnerships, May 30, 2008

High quality astronomical images, accompanied by rich caption and background information, abound ... more High quality astronomical images, accompanied by rich caption and background information, abound on the web and yet are notoriously difficult to locate efficiently using common search engines. ``Flat&#x27;&#x27; searches can return dozens of hits for a single popular image but ...

Journal of Astronomy & Earth Sciences Education (JAESE), 2015

Stereoscopys potential as a tool for science education has been largely eclipsed by its popularit... more Stereoscopys potential as a tool for science education has been largely eclipsed by its popularity as an entertainment platform and marketing gimmick. Dozens of empirical papers have been published in the last decade about the impact of stereoscopy on learning. As a result, a corpus of research now points to a coherent message about how, when, and where stereoscopy can be most effective in supporting science education. This position paper synthesizes that research with examples from three studies recently completed and published by the authors of this paper. Results of the synthesis point towards generally limited successful uses of stereoscopic media in science education with a pocket of potentially beneficial applications. Our position is that stereoscopy should be used only where its unique properties can accommodate specific requirements of understanding topics and tasks namely visualizations where the spatial sense of depth is germane to conveying core ideas and cognitive load ...