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NCSA NEWS |
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Adding the Element of Sound
One of the goals of science is to produce knowledge from data.
At NCSA, software developers use visualization tools to implement
this transformation, with the theory that new visualization tools
will produce new levels of understanding. For example, Tim
Karr, of the University of Chicago, found the sonification of Crumbs
dramatically improved visualizations of his work. Karr studies the
molecular biology of fertilization in Drosophila (fruit fly)
sperm tails
. Since these tails are complex, three dimensional structures
well outside the realm of common experience, virtual environments are
necessary to understanding and knowledge generation. Karr found that the
auditory information provided by the sonification aided the creation of a
mathematical model from the raw dataset.
The design and implementation of the Crumbs sonification
is the brain child of
Robin Bargar, principal investigator of
NCSA's
Audio Development Group. Bargar sees numerous ways in
which patterns can be found in scientific data by
applying sound, but he must convince researchers of the usefulness
of this new tool. "The skepticism
associated with the birth of visualization has a
parallel in the emergence of sonification. For
example, from time to time one encounters the challenge to
'give an example of a scientific discovery that was made
using computer-generated sound.' Well, that line of argumentation
is like expecting the
amoeba to invent the microscope. We know of many contexts where
sound calls our attention and enhances what is
seen. We listen to our car engine to determine
when it's time for a tune up, or sometimes a siren warns
us about an ambulance we can't see. If we don't
support sound tools' development we will not be able to put the
power of sound to work for the benefit of scientific understanding."
Of significant note,
Bargar points to people in education and those
developing tools for the visually impaired who have
found this type of auditory information to be
tremendously useful.
In the last few years, creating sound for
visualization has become more and more critical.
Bargar's goal is to work toward inventing an
effective sound palette for researchers. "There's
never been a widely available sonification workbench. The newness of
the idea makes it a challenge for the research
community. There is a need to identify elements within the
sonification architecture -- which is hardware
independent -- that will serve the demand for the
creation of quality sound in scientific work." So for each
project his team composes a "surface for the sound"
in a way that when the data changes the researcher's
experience allows him/her to reflect on how it's
changing. Bargar says the listener grows accustomed
to paying attention to two types of changes -- the
visual and the aural.
Bargar's team of composers and sound engineers
investigate alternatives to traditional sonification,
which is basic data-driven sound synthesis. "Over the
past six or seven years, people
discovered that since you could produce sound with
numbers, you could then apply scientific data to
control those numeric parameters and the sounds would
change. In traditional sonification, that was the
limit of the approach. Little regard was given for
the circumstances of the listener. But," Bargar
continues, "that doesn't take the process far enough
since people don't listen to sound in a vacuum."
Since all listeners make many decisions on what to
pay attention to, Bargar believes sounds have meaning
because of their relationships to other sounds in
that environment.
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