Scientific Visualization Enables New Perspectives on Research Data (Text Version)

This video shows the NREL Insight Center in action, providing an overview of its purpose and features.

The Insight Center at NREL is a collaborative space where scientists can transform their data into interactive graphics. The lab—which is part of NREL's Energy Systems Integration User Facility—offers a uniquely 3D, immersive experience to help researchers better understand their data.

The video opens with a flash of light, which fades into background footage of people with laptops sitting at a conference table. There is a smaller table on the side of the room with a computer monitor and several pairs of virtual reality (VR) goggles sitting on it. Across from the conference table, there is a person standing in front of a large screen displaying energy model simulations. The words following words appear on the screen over this background video:

“Energy Systems Integration Facility
Immersive Visualization – Insight Center”

There is another flash of light. This time the screen fades into footage of a man’s hand holding a controller for the display. There is a large screen showing modeled data in the background. The video then cuts to zoomed-out footage of the man (Nicholas) in front of the screen, showing that he is also wearing VR goggles. The video then cuts to another view of Nicholas in front of the screen, with three people with laptops sitting at a conference table watching him.

The video then shows Kenny facing the camera. Behind him, there is a whiteboard covered with equations. The following words appear on the lower left of the screen:

“Kenny Gruchalla
Senior Scientist, Scientific Visualization
National Renewable Energy Laboratory”

Kenny: We have been trained kind of since birth to understand the world by walking through it. That's how we make sense of the world, and that's what we want to bring to computational data, is that sense of embodiment.

Nicholas is sitting a table in front of a computer monitor showing columns of data. He faces a larger screen on the wall, which shows a matrix of moving visualizations. A woman (Kristi) wearing VR goggles is walking in front of this large screen.  

The videos cuts to Kristi sitting in a chair in front of a large screen showing a still simulation of a wind turbine.

Kristi: Using our eyeballs is the best way for us to get things into our head.

A man (Kenny) wearing VR goggles stands facing a large screen that shows colorful, moving shapes. He points to areas of the screen with a videogame controller and drags a yellow graph across the screen.

Kristi: I see visualization as really the primary tool for data understanding.

Close-up footage of Nicholas’ side profile. He is wearing VR googles, holding a videogame controller, and facing a large screen showing a data simulation.

The video cuts to Kristi, once again sitting in a chair in front of a screen showing a still simulation of a wind turbine. In the middle right of the screen, there following words appear:
“Kristi Potter
Visualization Scientist, Insight Center
National Renewable Energy Laboratory”

Kristi: The NREL Insight Center is a collaborative visualization space where scientists can bring their data and employ interactive graphics to be able order to understand their data better.

The video cuts to a continuation of previous footage, showing Nicholas in front of a computer monitor looking at data and code, while Kristi stands in front of a simulation on a larger screen in front of him. Kristi moves her hands across the large screen, and as she looks around the images move.

This cuts to footage of a realistic computer simulation of the outside of an NREL building. The video pans to show the main entrance and outside staircase of the building. The sign in front of the building reads:
“ESIF 15257
Energy Systems Integration Facility”

Kenny: This lab is part of the ESIF User Facility. The cost of maintaining this lab is already paid for as part of that user facility, so people are able to just come in and use it.

The computer-generated building fades into footage of a doorway, looking into a conference room. On the left, the sign of the room reads “B311 Insight Center Collaboration.” To the right, there is a conference table where Kenny and Nicholas are sitting in chairs, facing each other, with laptops on the table in front of them. On the wall behind Nicholas, there are whiteboards showing equations. The camera moves into the room to show a table near the doorway with several pairs of glasses on it. On the wall to the left of the door entrance, there is a large screen showing a video of simulated data. Kristi walks in front of this screen while wearing VR glasses. She looks at Kenny and Nicholas and then back at the screen.

This cuts to footage of Nicholas sitting in a chair in front of a large screen showing a still of a colorful simulation. Behind him, there is a table with a computer monitor showing another still simulation on it. In the lower right corner, the following words appear:
“Nicholas Brunhart-Lupo
Visualization Scientist, Insight Center
National Renewable Energy Laboratory”

Nicholas: It's the idea that you can immerse someone in a psychophysical environment so that they can explore their data more naturally than they can on a laptop or desktop.

The video then shows more footage of Nicholas’ side profile. He is wearing VR goggles, holding a controller, and facing a large screen of simulated data. This video then shows more zoomed-out footage of this scene. As Nicholas tilts his wrist while holding the controller, the data on the screen moves.

Kenny: It tracks your position and it changes the camera position in the visualization based on your position, so that allows you to physically walk into the data.

There is footage of a man wearing VR goggles standing in front of a colorful screen of moving data simulations. He is holding a controller in one hand and pointing to data with the other hand.

The video cuts to more footage of Nicholas speaking to the camera.

The footage then shows a man in front of a large screen with moving simulations on it. A conference table of three other people is in the foreground. The people are facing him. They have laptops and keyboards on the table in front of them.

The video cuts back to Nicholas speaking to the camera.

The footage then shows a man wearing VR goggles and facing a large screen with colorful data moving across it in the shape of spheres. In the foreground, two people are facing the screen, and the back of their heads are show in silhouette.

Nicholas: Bring your data to human scale so you can walk around it, look around it, maybe even reach out an interact with it in a different way. You can take that data that the researcher has and encode it a way that your brain can more easily dissect, and that's the goal here.

This fades into footage of a man sitting at a large table while typing on a keyboard. At the other end of the table, there is another man in front of a computer monitor. Both men point to a large screen on the wall in front of them, where a third man is standing. The large screen shows data visualizations.

The video shows more footage of Kristi speaking to the camera.

Kristi: We've certainly had some moments where people come in and they just have never seen their data in an immersive 3D space before.

The videos shows a close-up of a woman’s arm and hand holding a controller. She is wearing VR goggles and facing a large screen showing data visualizations. This quickly cuts to footage of two men sitting at a conference table with a laptop and keyboard. They are facing the woman and the screen. The screen shows data simulations of a map with a large arrow on it.

The video cuts to more footage of Kenny speaking to the camera.

Kenny: Our very first success story, the very first thing we visualized was the morphology of a bulk heterojunction.

The video shows data simulations moving across a large screen. On the left, there are two hands pointing to the screen. One hand holds a controller.

Kenny: So, this is the active layer of the solar cell.

The video cuts to more footage of Kenny speaking to the camera.

Kenny: I talked to the PI and I said, "You really – your data is what I had in my mind's eye when I designed the space."

The video shows close-up footage of a man wearing VR googles and holding a controller while facing a large screen of moving data. It then cuts to show more footage of the data on-screen, with the man’s hand and controller shown to the right. The video then shows the man walking in front of the screen, and in the foreground there are silhouettes of two people’s heads as they watch him. The footage once again cuts to close-up footage of the man facing the screen and pointing toward it with his controller. As he moves his hand, the data on the screen moves.

The video cuts to more footage of Kenny speaking to the camera. He motions with hands to show the movement of something getting smaller.

Kenny: I effectively shrunk him down to the nanometer level so he could kind of step inside of this morphology.

This cuts to close-up footage of Kenny speaking to the camera.

The video then shows a man in front of a large screen showing data simulations. He is wearing VR goggles and holding a controller. In the foreground, there is a conference table where three people sit with laptops, keyboards, and a monitor. This cuts to close-up of data moving across screen as man steps aside. As the man moves the controller across the screen, the data moves with it.

The video cuts to more footage of Kenny speaking to the camera.

Kenny: He came in, he put on the glasses, he took three steps into the space, and said the three most exciting words in science: "Huh, that's funny."

This cuts back to the previous footage of the man in front of the screen in the conference room. Once again, as he moves his hand and controller across the screen, the visualizations show similar movements.

Kenny: He saw something for the very first time that he had never appreciated.

Light flashes across the screen. This fades into footage of another conference table with people sitting on either end. A laptop, computer monitor, and keyboard are on the table. They two people are facing a large screen on the wall with data visualizations on it. A man stands in front of that screen while walking toward it.

This fades into another computer-generated video of the ESIF building, this time from the opposite side. There is a road wrapping around the building and there are hills and mountains in the background.

The footage fades to a video of a man standing in front of large screen showing data visualizations. The man is wearing VR goggles and holding a controller.

Kenny: We cover the entire mission space of the laboratory. So, that covers things from wind to solar to biomass to battery storage to systems integration.

The video shows more footage of Kristi speaking to the camera.

Kristi: I see visualization as the primary way that we're going to be communicating our data in the future.

The video shows a conference room where two men are sitting at a table, speaking to one another. A keyboard, computer monitor, and laptop are on the table in front of them. They face a large screen on the wall, where a third man is standing and walking toward it. The man sitting at the table on the right points to the screen.

Kristi: So many of the analysis tools that we're using are so complicated that without visualization we won't be able to actually know what's happening in the data

The video shows two men working on a piece of equipment inside of a lab. One man is crouched on the ground and the other is standing.

This cuts to a woman sitting at desk in front of computer monitor showing graphs.

The video then shows a man wearing a white lab coat, goggles, gloves. He is working with samples and reaching over a hood.

The footage cuts to a man wearing a utility jumpsuit and goggles. He walks toward table, where a book and pen are resting. On the table there is also a computer monitor, keyboard, and miscellaneous small lab equipment. In the background there are metal canisters and more computer monitors.

Kenny: Anybody who's doing work in the mission space, energy efficiency and renewable energy, can apply to have time in this lab.

This footage fades into a continuation of the opening scene. This shows a conference table where Kenny and Nicholas are sitting with computer monitors and laptops. There is a table in the left foreground with several pairs of glasses sitting on it. In the background there is a large screen of data visualizations. Kristi is in front of this screen, facing it, and then crouches down. She looks at one Nicholas at the table, and he points toward the screen.

The NREL logo is shown in the upper left corner of the video. The following words fade onto this footage:

“Learn more about NREL’s capabilities at the Energy Systems Integration Facility at nrel.gov/esif”

The video fades to black.