Jixian Li

Timbwaoga A. J. Ouermi, Jixian Li, Zachary Morrow et al.

Uncertainty is inherent to most data, including vector field data, yet it is often omitted in visualizations and representations. Effective uncertainty visualization can enhance the understanding and interpretability of vector field data. For instance, in the context of severe weather events such as hurricanes and wildfires, effective uncertainty visualization can provide crucial insights about fire spread or hurricane behavior and aid in resource management and risk mitigation. Glyphs are commonly used for representing vector uncertainty but are often limited to 2D. In this work, we present a glyph-based technique for accurately representing 3D vector uncertainty and a comprehensive framework for visualization, exploration, and analysis using our new glyphs. We employ hurricane and wildfire examples to demonstrate the efficacy of our glyph design and visualization tool in conveying vector field uncertainty.

Jixian Li, Timbwaoga Aime Judicael Ouermi, Mengjiao Han et al.

Predicting particle trajectories with neural networks (NNs) has substantially enhanced many scientific and engineering domains. However, effectively quantifying and visualizing the inherent uncertainty in predictions remains challenging. Without an understanding of the uncertainty, the reliability of NN models in applications where trustworthiness is paramount is significantly compromised. This paper introduces the uncertainty tube, a novel, computationally efficient visualization method designed to represent this uncertainty in NN-derived particle paths. Our key innovation is the design and implementation of a superelliptical tube that accurately captures and intuitively conveys nonsymmetric uncertainty. By integrating well-established uncertainty quantification techniques, such as Deep Ensembles, Monte Carlo Dropout (MC Dropout), and Stochastic Weight Averaging-Gaussian (SWAG), we demonstrate the practical utility of the uncertainty tube, showcasing its application on both synthetic and simulation datasets.

Matthew Berger, Jixian Li, Joshua A. Levine

We present a technique to synthesize and analyze volume-rendered images using generative models. We use the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) framework to compute a model from a large collection of volume renderings, conditioned on (1) viewpoint and (2) transfer functions for opacity and color. Our approach facilitates tasks for volume analysis that are challenging to achieve using existing rendering techniques such as ray casting or texture-based methods. We show how to guide the user in transfer function editing by quantifying expected change in the output image. Additionally, the generative model transforms transfer functions into a view-invariant latent space specifically designed to synthesize volume-rendered images. We use this space directly for rendering, enabling the user to explore the space of volume-rendered images. As our model is independent of the choice of volume rendering process, we show how to analyze volume-rendered images produced by direct and global illumination lighting, for a variety of volume datasets.