Presentation

Visual Data Stories for Climate Action: The Making of NASA’s Earth Information Center Public Exhibits
DescriptionThis production session presents the What, How, and Why of bringing to life the physical installations and data-driven visualizations featured at the Earth Information Center (earth.gov). The session shares with the SIGGRAPH community the challenges of, approaches to, and lessons learned from visualizing data for climate action and sheds light on research agendas and upcoming efforts.

First of its kind and launched in June 2023 at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC, the Earth Information Center (EIC) provides a holistic view of how our planet is changing in ways that affect the lives and livelihoods of individuals and communities across the globe. The EIC, which is spearheaded and coordinated by NASA, brings actionable data to the hands of the public by partnering with U.S. Federal Government agencies including EPA, FEMA, NOAA, USAID, USDA and USGS.

The EIC has two major components: 1) the backend cyber infrastructure of providing to the public actionable, easy-to-use data and information about Earth’s changing systems, and 2) physical exhibits located at centers across the US that bring data to life. The exhibits include hyperwalls, immersive and interactive experiences, showing the latest information about our climate.

This session is presented by a team of artists, Earth data visualization experts, and visualization researchers. The team shares with the SIGGRAPH community the goals and challenges of, processes involved in, and outcomes of creating and executing on such large scale exhibits for the general public. Specifically, the presentation focuses on the physical installations, the development of data-driven visualization media, the required pipelines and the open research questions explored by the team. The NASA team had less than 6 months to bring the exhibit to life for the launch of the Center.

https://earth.gov
Presenters
Founder of The Studio at JPL
Chief Software Engineer/Supervisor
Data Visualization Lead
Event Type
Production Session
TimeThursday, 1 August 20244:15pm - 5:15pm MDT
LocationBluebird Ballroom
Recordings
Not Livestreamed
Not Recorded
Registration Categories
Full Conference
Full Conference Supporter
Virtual Access
Exhibitor Full Conference
Thursday