Ka Chun Yu is the Curator of Space Science at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He’s in charge of the digital planetarium there, and has been studying the effectiveness of using immersive dome environments in teaching different astronomical principles.
His research has shown that immersive technologies are more effective at teaching certain astronomical principles such as why there are different seasons and how the sun rises and sets in different places throughout the year as well as throughout different places on the planet. That may not be a total surprise, but what was interesting was that the process of transforming and distorting immersive, 3D visualizations in order to work within a 2D projected context may actually be worse than telling people about it without using any visualizations at all. There are certain topics where being able to see objects fly around you are a critical part of understanding how the world works.
Ka Chun also talks about how he’s been using immersive technologies to facilitate group discussions with experts on various ecological issues facing us today. The technology can help provide a holistic picture on topics like the complete water cycle and the limited sources of fresh water. Having data visualizations and immersive experiences can make dry topics more compelling and engaging, and provide a solid foundation and context for having deep discussion around challenging abstract issues that we face as a society. He’s found that using immersive technologies like a digital planetarium can provide an experience to a large audience that is both very effective and compelling.
TOPICS
- 0:00 – Intro – Curator of space science and working with digital planetariums and studying the effectiveness of using immersive dome technology to teach astronomy and for telling stories about planet earth and regional ecological issues
- 0:39 – Effectiveness of fully, immersive dome for teaching astronomical principles compared to same visual content that’s projected onto a 2D wall as well as a control group with no visual content at all. For astronomical seasons, the immersive dome students had far superior results and if it’s projected onto a 2D wall, then those students did worse. Showing immersive visuals in a 2D screen, you get distortions and it’s a much inferior experience when compared to immersive visuals.
- 2:19 – Other astronomical principles better describe in a dome. Seasons requires you to look around and be able to watch the objects move across the sky. Other results are not as straight forward when you don’t need visuals that move around you.
- 3:06 – Sun rising and setting in different parts of the sky and able to show direction of rising and that it changes during the time of year and depending on where you life. You can even show how the sun rises and sets on Mars. Have the universe in their simulation and can travel through the entire universe and travel through time and at different viewpoints and perspectives to look at various issues, which is more effective
- 4:38 – Lectures and dialogues about ecological issues on planet earth. Have Google Maps type of capability. Connect people to issues of global change and how to be a part of the solution
- 5:37 – Other applications. 100% of California is under drought conditions. Help understand about water issues and where fresh water comes from. Fly around and show where water originates. Show them the water cycle process, rainfall and drought data, and connect them to global issues. Easier to show data in immersive dome environments than have someone just tell you about it in an abstract way.
- 7:38 – Trying to come up with a model so that audiences can have a group discussion with experts talking about these global issues from water conservation to sustainable agriculture. Need to educate the public and do it in a compelling way, and visual storytelling is very powerful and compelling, it looms overhead and is much more effective and immersive. Having these discussions with immersive technologies laying the context and foundation for the discussion is a very power and effective approach.
Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.412] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast.
[00:00:11.998] Ka Chun Yu: My name is Kachun Yu, and I'm the Curator of Space Science at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. And since I've been there, I've been working with digital planetariums, helping to renovate the one in Denver, and also using them in experimental research to study their effectiveness for teaching astronomy, but also looking at their effectiveness for telling stories about planet Earth and connecting people to regional ecological issues.
[00:00:38.403] Kent Bye: And so how are you measuring how effective it is to have students within a fully immersive dome versus not having access to that?
[00:00:45.904] Ka Chun Yu: Yeah, well in our astronomy project we actually set up an experiment where we compared students who came to the planetarium and saw visualizations in the dome connected to their class curriculum to students who saw the same visualizations but in their classroom, meaning it was projected onto a far wall so it wasn't immersive at all. And then also compared it to a group that didn't see any visualizations at all, so they were the control group and just had the regular classroom experience. And what we saw, we studied a number of different topics, and in the topic of astronomical seasons, understanding why there are seasons on the Earth, the group that went to the dome had far superior results in their learning gains than either group. And in fact, we seem to show that groups who saw the visualizations in their classrooms, meaning they were seeing the same content, but it was projected onto a flat wall, were actually doing worse, and possibly even worse than the control group. And we think that might be due to the fact that in this case of the seasons, you really do need to have an immersive environment around you. And so whenever you're trying to show immersive visuals in a flat screen, you are either truncating the view or shrinking it or adding distortion because instead of wraparound view, you're seeing it on a rectangular display. And so all these factors contribute to a much inferior experience compared to immersion. And so in this case, at least for that particular topic, the virtual environment inside an immersive display is far superior than the non-immersive one.
[00:02:19.490] Kent Bye: And have you found other astronomical principles being better described within a dome environment?
[00:02:25.437] Ka Chun Yu: Well, in this case, Seasons does require you to be able to look around, meaning unless you want the virtual camera to be panning all over the place, you want to be able to look to one direction in which the sun is rising or the stars are rising, watch the movements of these objects across the sky, and watch them set. And there are other phenomena that, where we haven't found as strong results, or where the results are not as straightforward. And in some cases, the immersion isn't any better, and that's because you don't necessarily need to see things move around you. But in this case, this is just a very, very strong result.
[00:03:05.613] Kent Bye: And what about, you know, where the sun rises and sets during the equinoxes and solstices, and how high the sun is? What have you done in terms of visualizing that within an immersive environment?
[00:03:14.286] Ka Chun Yu: Yeah, that's exactly part of some of the things that we go through. Because if you ask people, especially younger kids, they don't necessarily even think of the sun rising and setting in completely different parts of the sky. They might think of the sun as going up and then dropping back down. It's sort of like this Looney Tunes cartoon version of the sun where it pops up and drops back down. And so being able to show people not only the direction of it rising, but the fact that It changes over the course of the year. It changes depending on which part of the Earth you're at. If you're at the North Pole, you have a very different experience than if you're at a mid-latitude or if you're at the equator. You can even show this happening on different planets. We can fly to, let's say Mars, and see how the sunrise and sunset is different. And the other aspect of having something that's completely simulated, we literally have the universe inside our simulation. And so we have complete freedom of traveling anywhere in the universe that is built in the software and being able to control time. And what that means is that you can have multiple perspectives. That you can be on the surface of the earth, you can be outside the earth looking back, seeing how the earth is illuminated by the sun. And having these different viewpoints, which are all very complementary, not only do we show in our research that to be more effective, but other people have shown that as well.
[00:04:39.216] Kent Bye: And what other topics beyond astronomy are you using within the dome environment?
[00:04:44.047] Ka Chun Yu: We are using the Dome environment to present lectures and dialogues about our planet Earth. The fact that these visualizations also have the Earth built into them. And so in some way they're sort of like a Google Earth computer simulation but on steroids because you actually feel like you're flying around the Earth and landing on the Earth as opposed to watching it on your computer screen. And as a result, I'm part of a project called the World Viz Network, which are using immersive visualizations and data visualizations in domes to connect people to important environmental issues and to problems of global change, and helping them to understand how their world is changing around them, but also, more importantly, to help them understand in what ways that they can continue to connect to these issues and to help be part of the solution.
[00:05:37.512] Kent Bye: And can you give an example of an ecological issue and some data visualization that you're able to do that seems to be particularly effective within an immersive dome?
[00:05:46.324] Ka Chun Yu: You know, currently this conference this year is held in California. In California, exactly 100% of the entire state is under drought conditions. And so this has been unprecedented and there has been calls for water conservation. But one of the presentations that we've done multiple times, and we've done it for both in Colorado and for Texas, has been getting people to understand about water issues. Because oftentimes when you ask people where does their water come from, they think it comes out of their tap. And that's all they know. but one of the things that we can do with these visualizations is to actually be able to literally fly around and talk about where their water originates, whether it's groundwater or surface water, and if it's surface water, does it come from the lake, does it come from snow melt, from a mountaintop, and to literally show them the process and to talk about, because we can show data, we can talk about rainfall patterns, precipitation patterns, drought patterns, and really get them to understand their water in the context of regional water issues, of continental water issues, and then eventually also global issues. The fact that most people don't realize that most of our water is, well, many people know that most of our water is in the ocean, so it's not fresh water, but even the 3% that's not fresh, two-thirds of it is locked up in Antarctica and in the Greenland ice caps. And even the remaining water, most of it's locked up in the ground. And so the amount of water that we actually have access to that is fresh water is actually a tiny fraction of the total amount of water in the world. And sometimes it's far easier to visualize this and to come up with very clever ways of showing problems of water availability and water access and to see that data than it is to hear someone talk about it or to read about it.
[00:07:38.125] Kent Bye: And finally, what do you see as the ultimate potential for these types of virtual reality immersive environments?
[00:07:44.080] Ka Chun Yu: Well, I think one of the things that we're trying to do with our Earth presentations is to come up with a model in which audiences can have dialogues with themselves and with experts on these global change issues. And so, you know, it might not be water, it could be the opposite, where you have too much water, where you have flash flooding, or it could be about climate change, or it could be about sustainable agriculture. There are so many issues that people are confronting today where you need to educate the public and you need to do it in a very compelling way. And we find that visual storytelling is very powerful, especially when you do it with domes because the dome imagery is so compelling. The imagery looms overhead. It's a much clearer way to present information than if someone was sitting in the back of a room trying to look at a PowerPoint that displayed on a wall. It's very immersive, and from our evaluations, it's also very compelling to audiences. And so we think that having these discussions while using immersive visualizations to build up the context or to lay down the groundwork and the foundation for these discussions is a powerful way for people to connect with the big issues of our time. Great. Well, thanks so much. Yeah, thank you.
