TY - JOUR
T1 - NeuroLines: A Subway Map Metaphor for Visualizing Nanoscale Neuronal Connectivity
AU - Al-Awami, Ali K.
AU - Beyer, Johanna
AU - Strobelt, Hendrik
AU - Kasthuri, Narayanan
AU - Lichtman, Jeff W.
AU - Pfister, Hanspeter
AU - Hadwiger, Markus
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
PY - 2014/12/31
Y1 - 2014/12/31
N2 - We present NeuroLines, a novel visualization technique designed for scalable detailed analysis of neuronal connectivity at the nanoscale level. The topology of 3D brain tissue data is abstracted into a multi-scale, relative distance-preserving subway map visualization that allows domain scientists to conduct an interactive analysis of neurons and their connectivity. Nanoscale connectomics aims at reverse-engineering the wiring of the brain. Reconstructing and analyzing the detailed connectivity of neurons and neurites (axons, dendrites) will be crucial for understanding the brain and its development and diseases. However, the enormous scale and complexity of nanoscale neuronal connectivity pose big challenges to existing visualization techniques in terms of scalability. NeuroLines offers a scalable visualization framework that can interactively render thousands of neurites, and that supports the detailed analysis of neuronal structures and their connectivity. We describe and analyze the design of NeuroLines based on two real-world use-cases of our collaborators in developmental neuroscience, and investigate its scalability to large-scale neuronal connectivity data.
AB - We present NeuroLines, a novel visualization technique designed for scalable detailed analysis of neuronal connectivity at the nanoscale level. The topology of 3D brain tissue data is abstracted into a multi-scale, relative distance-preserving subway map visualization that allows domain scientists to conduct an interactive analysis of neurons and their connectivity. Nanoscale connectomics aims at reverse-engineering the wiring of the brain. Reconstructing and analyzing the detailed connectivity of neurons and neurites (axons, dendrites) will be crucial for understanding the brain and its development and diseases. However, the enormous scale and complexity of nanoscale neuronal connectivity pose big challenges to existing visualization techniques in terms of scalability. NeuroLines offers a scalable visualization framework that can interactively render thousands of neurites, and that supports the detailed analysis of neuronal structures and their connectivity. We describe and analyze the design of NeuroLines based on two real-world use-cases of our collaborators in developmental neuroscience, and investigate its scalability to large-scale neuronal connectivity data.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/556113
UR - http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/lpdocs/epic03/wrapper.htm?arnumber=6875935
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84909579145&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TVCG.2014.2346312
DO - 10.1109/TVCG.2014.2346312
M3 - Article
SN - 1077-2626
VL - 20
SP - 2369
EP - 2378
JO - IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
JF - IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
IS - 12
ER -