Designing in the Dark – guiding research-driven software design with visualization: I will be presenting a real-time, interactive visualization project created with Unity to supplement an upcoming research paper about the projected outcomes of chemical reactions. The paper deals with overly optimistic projections of reaction rates, and the likelihood of defects resulting in imperfect outcomes. I will be covering the process of creating the software both for its technical considerations (efficient rendering in real-time) and its scientific validity, mentioning where applicable steps taken for optimization of the underlying algorithms and graphical rendering in addition to remaining possibilities for increasing performance and the potential for better implementations. Additionally, I will address the degree to which the development of this software influenced the direction of the research informing it and helped to highlight areas of incomplete understanding of the mechanisms proposed therein.
Interactive visualizations for multiobjective optimization problems: In environmental planning problems, decision makers are faced with multiple competing objectives. Multiobjective optimization is a promising method for identifying solutions for these complex systems. However, the datasets that result from these optimizations are large and multi-dimensional, making them difficult to interpret. Interactive visualizations allow users to more easily explore these data and make better decisions. In this presentation, we highlight the features of parasol.js, our new interactive visualization library for exploring multiobjective optimization datasets.
