Tag Archives: animation

Create an Interactive Map to Illustrate Your Study Sites

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Have you wondered how people create and embed interactive maps into their websites like the one below?  These are quite useful in showing not only where you have been sampling, for example, but to also link text descriptions and photographs of each location that pop up in a box when the placemarker is selected on the map (select the “view in a larger map” and click on one of the placemarkers for an example).


View Flood 2011 Sampling Sites in a larger map

In addition to enhancing your website, these interactive maps might be incorporated into a video to show the locations of sites that will be described or where footage was shot.  In this tutorial, I show how to create such a personalized map using Google Maps, which is free (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):

Domino Theory

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As I’ve been trying to emphasize in past posts, visual story-telling using a good dramatic question can be a powerful way to spread sound science ideas to a diverse audience.  Here’s a video that is highly effective in getting across the concept of the “domino effect in nature”.  It was made by graduate student, Megan Callahan, who used simple props (dominoes) to create a compelling video:

The video was made during a workshop held by Randy Olson, scientist turned filmmaker (more about the workshop here).  Let’s apply my features of a good video and see how this one does:

1. The video is short.  Imagine a scientist getting across an abstract concept….by talking.  This video does it in one minute, with minimal talking.

2. The information is presented visually as well as verbally.  Yes.  Even without the beginning dialog between the two women, the point of the video is clear.

3. The video keeps adding information at a steady but rapid pace.  Yes.  In this case, the video uses falling dominoes in different habitats to move the story forward.

4. There is constant motion going on throughout the video. Yes, the falling dominoes and cuts from one scene to the next create the impression of constant motion.

5. Colors are intense and dramatic.  Not so obvious because the colors are those of nature.  The video could have used a few close-ups of the images on the dominoes with dramatic colors (of a butterfly or flower, for example).

6. The text is minimal; only what is essential to understanding the message.  Yes, a brief text segment at the end poses the key questions.

7. There is a dream-like quality about the video.  No.

8. The video elicits an emotional reaction in the viewer, largely driven by the music, which  is compelling and carefully keyed to the visual shifts.  The music (mostly bongos) adds to the feeling of movement or motion, which along with the sounds of the falling dominoes, creates a mood.

9. All visual and audio components are rendered to the highest quality possible.  Yes.

10. The video has people, animals, or cartoon characters that are doing something interesting, unusual, or surprising.  In this case, the falling dominoes with attached images representing species are a surprising element.

11. There is an element of suspense.  Yes.  Where will the dominoes end up?

12. There is no traditional beginning, middle, and end.  In this case, there is:  the opening scene with the two women, the falling dominoes, the ending text sequence.  However, it’s not really that obvious.

So this video clearly adheres to most of the elements I’ve identified as being important to creating an effective message.  Let me hasten to add that these are not the only features that characterize an effective video.  There may be some that break the rules (and these, I’m guessing, will be highly effective).  The point is that there are some common attributes that the scientist videographer can keep in mind when planning a video project.

Use your imagination, as Megan did, and create something memorable.  In this case, she took the name of the scientific idea (domino effect) and used it to develop a visual aid that reinforced the concept.  She went a step further and attached pictures of organisms to the dominoes, which drove home the point that each domino represented a species.  By putting the questioning woman’s picture on the last domino, Megan emphasized that humans are part of nature’s interconnectedness.

Many other scientific concepts lend themselves to such visual storytelling.  We just have to be creative in finding ways to tell those stories.

A final point about Megan’s video:  it did not require an expensive film crew, elaborate stage settings, exotic shooting locations, or a huge budget to create.  The students had NO prior experience with film making.  I’m not sure what equipment they used to capture the footage, but it would have been possible to shoot it with a smartphone.  The students did their own acting.  The only prop was a package of dominoes.  Their “shooting locations” for nature scenes were different habitats in their region, apparently close by and easily accessible.  This is a great example of how someone using minimal equipment and visual aids can create a compelling audiovisual message.

Use Video to Augment Your Scholarly Pubs

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In recent posts, I’ve been providing reasons why scientists might want to use videography to draw attention to their scholarly articles and to meet funding requirements.

I pointed out how the National Science Foundation and other science funding agencies expect scientists to develop outreach products and activities that inform a wider audience about the value of their science and to generally increase the public’s understanding of science (the Broader Impacts criterion).  I also showed how videos and images can put your scholarly article at the top of a Google search page, when your text-based document is buried on page 43.

Journals are also increasingly using video to illustrate methods or to visually show the results of a study they’ve published.  Such videos, which are often included in the supplementary online material, are linked to your published article on the journal webpage where specialists in your field will see it. Videos can also make your article and work more visible to students and others who may be searching for information on the topic using Google or other search engines. If you have the only video on the Web on your topic, it is going to be ranked high on the Google search page (see this post for an example of how this works).

In the current post, I provide an example of a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that was accompanied by supplemental online material, including three videos illustrating their results.  The paper is titled, “3D Imaging and Mechanical Modeling of Helical Buckling in Medicago truncatula Plant Roots“.  The authors conducted a study of how the roots of the plant behave when they encounter a layer that is more resistant to penetration, a common occurrence in some soils.  They were able to view the change in root growth pattern by using a clear gel as a growth medium. Two gel layers were created, the lower one being of a stiffer consistency than the upper one.  The roots grew normally, that is, straight down, when in the upper layer.  However, when the plant roots encountered the more resistant gel layer, they began to curl and form into a helical shape.  This “helical buckling” provided more force at the root tip, which helped it penetrate the more resistant material.  Their modeling of the mechanics of root growth patterns predicted this greater force when roots grew in this helical manner.

This work showing how plant roots manage to grow through tough layers of material was illustrated using 3D imaging.  Below is a 3D, time-lapse video of the growth of a root through the upper, less resistant layer and then through the lower layer that caused the root to buckle and curl into a helical shape.

And here’s another example of a video done to accompany a paper published in the journal, Coral Reefs:

The paper that the above video illustrates is titled “The Use of Tools by Wrasses (Labridae)“.  The video shows a fish cracking open a bivalve by throwing it against a large coral head.  Although the video needed some close-up views of the action, it does get across the idea in a short visual clip (2 minutes).  On YouTube, the video has been viewed over 40,000 times.

Both of these examples illustrate how you can use video to augment your journal articles as supplementary online material on the journal website or on your own website.

Some journal publishers are now able to accept video embedded into the online article in a similar manner as photos, graphs, or tables.  Here is a link to an article in the journal, Cell, that has embedded video in the online version of the paper.

Having a video available to illustrate your research can often get your paper highlighted in the news section of the online journal.  For example, here is a link to a video reconstruction of the skull of Australopithecus sebida.  There is also a podcast with the author on the same webpage.

By having audio-visual components associated with your print or online articles, your work will be more visible to search engines, and journals are more likely to select your article to highlight on their webpage.

References:

Bernardi, G.  2012.  The use of tools by wrasses (Labridae).  Coral Reefs 31 (1): 39. DOI: 10.1007/s00338-011-0823-6

Nonaka, S. et al.  1998.  Randomization of lef-right asymmetry due to loss of nodal cilia generating leftward flow of extraembryonic fluid in mice lacking KIF3B motor protein.  Cell 95 (6): 829-837.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0092-8674(00)81705-5

Silverberg, J.L. et al.  2012.  3D imaging and mechanical modeling of helical buckling in Medicago truncatula plant roots. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online (before print). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1209287109

Video Review: What Is A Flame?

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Some of you may have heard about the “Flame Challenge” proposed by Alan Alda, the actor, and sponsored by the Center for Communicating Science.  In an effort to promote clear communication of science, Alda challenged scientists and engineers to explain what a flame is, using everyday language that an 11-year old could understand.

There were over 800 entries, which were judged by 6,000 11-year olds around the world.  The medium used to create the explanation was entirely open.  Some entries were written text; others were graphical; and a few were videos.  It was no surprise to me that the winning entry was a video.  Here’s the winning entry by Ben Ames, a Ph.D. student in quantum optics:

What was a surprise to me was how few of the finalists submitted videos.  I was really curious to know how many of the 800 or so entries used video, but could not find that information.  So I could only judge by the proportion of videos in the list of finalists (5) and honorable mentions (8).  Of these (total of 13), only five were video entries, and many were just written text (7 of 13 = 54%).

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that so many scientists and engineers submitted written text to explain what a flame is.  That’s the medium they are accustomed to using.  They clearly did NOT have their audience (11-year olds) in mind when coming up with the medium to convey their explanation of a flame.  I can’t imagine why anyone would think an 11-year old would be impressed with a text explanation.  Before I go any further, here are a couple of the text entries so you’ll get the idea:

Honorable Mention (electrical engineer):  “A flame is like you (a human) and needs oxygen to breathe and must eat to live, except a flame will eat almost anything (wax, wood, paper, etc.).  After a flame eats its dinner, it “poops” out part of what it ate in the form of ashes or melted wax.”

Finalist (engineer): “What is a flame? A flame is an object, a “thing,” something you can see, something you can touch (but don’t do that because it is hot). It is not like other objects, such as a rock, because it “happens” and then goes away.  It “happens” when something (a “combustible”) is heated to a high enough temperature and then starts to burn. This might be wood, or paper, or gas, or oil, or dry leaves, just to name a few. It takes different amounts of heat to get them to burn, but they all do. The big name for things burning is “combustion.” You get the heat by burning something else or — if you have a magnifying glass and focus sunlight on a single spot — you will be able to burn paper and some other things.

There are other ways to make a flame by mixing chemicals, but heating is easiest to understand. When something burns, it changes into ash and/or a gas (“residue”), and light. This light is what is called “a flame.”  So a flame is what you see when something burns.”

Now, I’m not picking on engineers or these two specific examples.  These were two of the shortest entries that made it into the final selections.  Short is good.  Other written entries were quite a bit longer.  These descriptions are simple and clear enough for an 11-year old to understand.  The problem is that for visual learners, verbal explanations are not going to work well.  All of this makes me wonder about the other 780 or so entries that did not make it into the final group.

It’s also clear why the winning entry was the one that the 11-year old judges selected:  It was fun to watch.  I can imagine after reading a bunch of written entries that this video was a welcome relief.  It also contained many of the elements I’ve listed previously for what makes a science video effective:

1. The video is relatively short (7 1/2 min).

2. The information is presented visually (as well as verbally).

3. The video continually adds information at a steady but rapid pace.

4.  There is constant motion going on throughout the video.

5. Colors are intense and dramatic.

6. The text is minimal; only what is essential to understanding.

7.  The video elicits an emotional reaction in the viewer (amazement, amusement, curiosity).

8.  The video has people, animals, or cartoon characters that are doing something interesting, unusual, or surprising (a cartoon man chained in what appears to be Hell).

9.  There is an element of suspense (what will happen to the guy who’s chained up?).

So overall, I thought the winning entry was particularly good from the standpoint of creativity and meeting audience expectations.  One possible criticism, which I came across at another blog by Marc Kuchner, is that the video perpetuates the stereotype of the nerdy, cold-hearted scientist.  I see his point, although I don’t think this video is the worst example of scientist stereotypes (see this post for a really bad video with stereotypes).  Nonetheless, it’s something to keep in mind when designing science communication products.

On the other hand, I was disappointed that so few scientists and engineers bothered to do more than just write a text explanation.  A few of the graphical or video entries were submitted by scientists/engineers who partnered with someone who helped them develop the visual components.  At least they realized that there needed to be a visual explanation to help get across the information to an 11-year old, and they sought out someone who had those skills.

In summary, I think this contest highlighted the enormous gap between what the general public needs and expects in the way of science information and how scientists and engineers are trained to communicate their science.  The fact that a few of the contestants were able to create reasonably good videos is encouraging.  But we can do better.

Message to you scientists and engineers out there who are planning to submit an entry to the next science communication challenge:  Kids who’ve grown up with YouTube are not going to be satisfied with text explanations.

How to Remove the Background from an Image (Part 2)

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This is the second part of the Adobe Photoshop (CS5) tutorial in which I show how to remove the background from an image when that background is not a solid color but is instead a more complex image.  I provide several examples of images with different types of backgrounds and then show different techniques for handling these situations.

Once you master these very easy techniques, you will then be poised to create more professional looking montages in your videos or even to begin creating some simple animations.

Here is the video tutorial (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):