Viz Lab

The Visualization Laboratory (Viz Lab) is an informal education research and development effort targeting the inaccessibility of the nanoscale, a world so remotely small that models, simulations, and other visualizations are required to experience and understand it. Through visitor research, collaborative development, and open-ended experimentation, Viz Lab's work is to strengthen the visualization practices and products within and beyond the network.

Over the last two years, Viz Lab has focused on research and development of effective visualizations to support work by other members of the network. Through this work, Viz Lab has generated a dynamic image database, scale diagrams, illustrations, and research on visitor comprehension of scale and molecular representations.

The other primary focus of Viz Lab has been collaborations with artists, scientists, and other communities to experiment with new ways to visualize the nanoscale. This work has led to new haptic interfaces, immersive simulations of the nanoscale, and novel art installations.

Using a combination of visitor research, collaborative development, and open-ended experimentation, Viz Lab addresses the following goals:

• To build knowledge about how public audiences use and interpret different types of visualizations in informal learning environments in order to inform development and design work.
• To strengthen the public engagement toolkit by identifying or developing examples of effective uses of images, diagrams, animations, 3-D models, and other visualization strategies.
• To build capacity among informal science educators and the nano research community in creating and using scientific visualizations.
• To increase innovation by cross-fertilizing informal science education with the scientific visualization, visual arts, and other communities focusing on visual communication.