Subject Area Knowledge Visualization

In an ever-increasingly visually oriented society, understanding and knowledge are being controlled more than ever by means of images. Images not only generate a high degree of attention – visualizations also make information for comprehensible, by revealing complex insights and impermeable contexts. Accordingly, knowledge visualization gains relevance and importance for teaching, research and the public, and is an important field for designers. In the Bachelor and Master degree programmes, as well as in the research projects, we are working together with our cooperative partners to develop long-term relevant topic areas and then enhance them further.

Teaching and learning

The Knowledge Visualization Bachelor’s degree teaches basic competencies for the visualization of scientific content. The training covers conceptual as well as design and artistic aspects, and includes the use of both analogue and digital media. In close cooperation with experts and institutions from different fields of science, the students develop outstanding artistic solutions in the field of visual knowledge transfer.

Information on the Bachelor of Arts in Design and how to apply can be found on the Bachelor’s degree programme page.

The Knowledge Visualization subject area offers the core subject «Discovery Visualization» as a specialization for the Master of Arts in Design degree. During a three-semester study programme, Master’s students further develop their imaging competencies and examine the use of new imaging processes. While drawing closely on scientific research, students develop individual projects that investigate the use of drawing, image and 3D visualization for knowledge transfer. Visualization forms, design methods and concepts of knowledge transfer are researched and further developed within the interdisciplinary context of the Master of Arts in Design course. 

Information on the Master of Arts in Design and how to apply can be found on the Master degree programme page.

Research

The research group of the Knowledge Visualization subject area focuses on design and knowledge transfer in the area of 3D visualization, and on the development of interactive didactic 3D models. We will examine teaching concepts and questions about design and aesthetics in connection with modelling and knowledge transfer with the aim of gaining new insights and developing innovative tools for the transfer of knowledge.
 

Research Projects

Tangible Virtual Models
An interactive and tangible botanical model is created in 3D and presented to a wide public as part of an innovative event.

Closing the Cleft
How can you virtually learn a complex operation in the field of cleft lip and palate surgery and train using real patient data?

Augmented und Virtual Reality
A new “reality” in the virtual world. Possibilities for using AR and VR to transfer knowledge.
 

Institute for Design Research IDR

The research conducted in the Knowledge Visualization subject area forms part of the research of the Department of Design, which is bundled together at the Institute for Design Research (IDR). The IDR is an integrative organization which coordinates and proactively supports the research projects of the various subject areas within the Department of Design. As the central gathering point for research projects in the Department of Design, the IDR forms the content bridge between researchers in the Department and external research partners.

Events

It is crucial to cultivate a stimulating professional discourse within our discipline, and offer students the opportunity to meet people in the network of scientific illustrators right from the outset. To this end, the Knowledge Visualization subject area organizes the Illustrators' Lunch and Science Lunch lecture series each academic year. At the former event, experts from the scientific and free illustration fields as well as related design and art disciplines talk about their careers and their creative activities, while in the Science Lunch researchers and scientists report on their work, from which potential cooperative projects can arise.

Additionally, the Knowledge Visualization research group organizes symposiums in order to gain more detailed expert opinions, as well as to bring our research areas closer to a wider circle of interested parties, and to further consolidate the network.

→ To the agenda

Publications (in German)

Pflanzen, Blüten, Früchte

Botanische Illustrationen in Kunst und Wissenschaft
(Plants, Flowers and Fruits – Botanical Illustrations in Art and Science)

The publication accompanying the exhibition at the Neues Museum Biel (Switzerland) seeks to highlight the close interaction between botanical science and various art genres. Students’ work of the last 30 years from the Scientific Visualization specialization, as well as the work of current students, is presented and explained in both the exhibition and the publication.

Gerd-Helge Vogel (ed.); Contributors: Jasmin Baumann, Niklaus Heeb, Tina Moor, João Vicente Ganzarolli de Oliveira, Otto Schäfer, Anna-Brigitte Schlittler, Gerd-Helge Vogel, Bernadette Walter

ISBN 978-3-86732-198-3; October 2014; 174 pages, 250 illustrations.
 

Letzte Jäger, erste Hirten

Hochalpine Archäologie in der Silvretta
(Last Hunters, First Shepherds – High Alpine Archaeology in the Silvretta Alps)

The Scientific Visualization specialization has been cooperating with the Institute for Pre- and Early History of the University of Zurich for two years. Numerous presentations on the Silvretta Alps survey project have emerged in the context of teaching projects and student training courses, and have been publicized through an exhibition as well as this publication. Illustrations range from strictly conventional line drawings of an archaeological find that possesses a documentary character to colour life-images of a reconstructed landscape.

Publisher/Editor: T. Raitmaier, Department of Pre- and Early History at the University of Zurich
Contributions: Students from the 4th semester, Scientific Visualization
Mentoring: Riccardo Bellettati
 

Landschaft Erlebnis Reisen

Naturnaher Tourismus in Parks und UNESCO-Gebieten
(Landscape – Experience – Travel: Nature Tourism in Parks and UNESCO Areas)

Nature tourism doesn’t take you far away. Instead, it pulls you right in – into Switzerland, with its parks and UNESCO world heritage sites. Nature tourism is a form of tourism that makes the variety of a region’s natural and cultural landscapes accessible in a sensitive manner, while at the same time providing jobs and value to local people. Images from the Scientific Visualization specialization appear in this publication as atmospheric pictures, as well as assuming a structured visual form.

Editors: Dominik Siegrist, Matthias Stremlow
Illustrations: Students from the Scientific Visualization specialization
 

Kinderpfad Champlönch

(Champlönch Children’s Trail)

The Champlönch children’s trail is the result of a cooperative venture between the Department of Design and the Swiss National Park.

In a teaching project, fourth-semester students of the Visual Visualization specialization developed the idea and concept for this book. In a further project, the illustrations were created, and the students of the Cast specialization developed the stories and audio templates.

Concept and research: ZHdK, Scientific Visualization specialization
Project leader: Niklaus Heeb
Lecturers: Karin Seiler, Susan Knapp, Niklaus Heeb
Illustrations: Bianca Barandun, Daniela Frischknecht, Andrea Klaiber, Julia Kohli, Julia Kuster, Anna Schmocker, Esther Schönenberger, David Schürch, Anne Seeger

Cooperations and networks

There are regular collaborations with institutions and professionals from the fields of life sciences, environmental sciences and cultural sciences. Important partners: ETH Zurich, University of Zurich, University of Basel, Excite (Competence Centre Experimental and Clinical Imaging Technologies, ETH), Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Office for Spatial Development, Zurich Office of Archaeology and Heritage Conservation, Museum of Design Zurich, Federal Offices for the Environment and Spatial Development (BAFU/ ARE), Federal Research Institute for Forestry, Snow and Landscape, Swiss National Park in Zernez.
→  More information on our network of cooperation partners

Professional associations for the field of scientific illustration

  • AEIMS — Association Européenne des Illustrateurs Médicaux et Scientifiques
  • AAI&S — Association of Archaeological Illustrators and Surveyors, UK
  • AMI — Association of Medical Illustrators, USA
  • ASCI — Art and Science Collaborations, USA
  • IMI — Institute of Medical Illustrators, UK
  • MAA — The Medical Artists’ Association of Great Britain  
  • GNSI — Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, USA 

Head

Niklaus Heeb, a university-qualified scientific illustrator and biology degree graduate, runs his own illustration studio. As the head of the Knowledge Visualization subject area, he currently teaches and researches in the fields of image design and knowledge visualization.

Contact

Office

Nicole von Salis
Email
Tel. +41 43 446 32 22
Open Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:00–16:00 h, Wednesdays 9:00–12:00 h
Office 4.E07
 

Assistance

Noemi Chow
Roman Ernst
Alessandro Holle
Luzia Rink
Tel. +41 43 446 32 23

Research

Jonas Christen
Tel. +41 43 446 32 80
Knowledge Visualization Research
 

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