Illustrations are artworks designed to present or enrich content. They play an especially important role in science, where they can be used to show objects or phenomena that are beyond our perception. Unlike other types of artwork or diagrams, illustrations try to present realistic renderings of the subjects they portray.
The Visualization Lab has created a series of illustrations that show familiar objects across ten orders of magnitude in a single illustration: the human bloodstream, a butterfly wing, and a computer chip. To help visitors see the connections between objects from vast size scales, the Viz Lab team applied the use of perspective commonly used in landscape paintings: large objects are on the horizon, and small objects are in the foreground. This innovation earned Linda Nye (the illustrator) and the Viz Lab team the 2008 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge from NSF and Science Magazine. These illustrations are available as stand-alone images, banners, annotated posters, or combined in a single poster that highlights "Everything is Made of Atoms."
Illustrations in the Catalog
- Zoom into the Human Bloodstream [1] (created by Viz Lab)
- Zoom into a Butterfly Wing [2] (created by Viz Lab)
- Zoom into a Computer Chip [3] (created by Viz Lab)
- Everything Is Made of Atoms - Combination Poster [4] (created by Viz Lab)
- Zoom into a Pencil Line of Graphene with an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) [5]- Illustration