Trance opera—Spente le Stellebe dramaticmore quotes

art is science is art

EMBO Practical Course: Bioinformatics and Genome Analysis, 5–17 June 2017.

art + design

Math geek? If you like the clean geometric design of the type posters, you may enjoy something even more mathematical. Design that transcends repetition: Art of Pi, Phi and e posters.

eyes on the universe

These typographical posters are designed after the style of the Snellen Chart, which is one of the kinds of eye charts used to measure visual acuity.

If you love looking, seeing and the universe, these posters are for you. They are available for purchase.

optotypes

Symbols on such charts are known as optotypes. Fonts by Andrew Howlett exist whose glyphs conform to the properties of optotypes: Snellen font and Sloan font. However, some of the characters in the Snellen font file are a little oddly shaped—I provide my redesign of the Snellen font in which the glyphs are more consistent (see below). Lowercase characters are not available.

For the posters here, I've used either my redesigned Snellen font or Monotype's Rockwell, with minor stroke and kerning adjustments in places. Some symbols, such as on the math chart, were designed by hand.

The numbers on the left side of the posters (e.g. 20/30) are a measure of visual acuity. The numbers on the right provide information about what is shown on the line (e.g. abundance of elements).

Snellen chart design

The charts are designed to be viewed at a distance of 6 meters (20 feet). At this distance, ability to resolve a letter tha subtends 5 minute of arc corersponds to 6/6 (or 20/20) visual acuity. This corresponds to a letter size of $$\frac{2\pi}{360} \times \frac{5}{60} \times 6 = 8.727 \, \text{mm} = 24.74 \, \text{pt}$$

The Snellen optotypes are designed on a 5 × 5 grid and have a fascinating history. For design, Rockwell and Lubalin Graph can be used to approximate Snellen, though these fonts lack the grid structure of the optotypes.

Snellen optotypes are designed on a 5 × 5 grid. At a viewing distance of 6 m (20 ft) each letter on the 6/6 (or 20/20) acuity line must be 8.727 mm (24.47 pt). The optotypes are compared to the characters from the Rockwell Bold font, which is a mediocre approximation. (zoom)

snellen optotype font

Below I show the difference between Andrew's version of Snellen and my own redesign of the font—read about redesign process—which reinterprets some of the characters and adds lowercase.

Snellen optotypes are designed on a 5 × 5 grid. At a viewing distance of 6 m (20 ft) each letter on the 6/6 (or 20/20) acuity line must be 8.727 mm (24.47 pt) (zoom, zoom, about the design, download Snellen font)

the posters

conventional Snellen charts

These Snellen charts include acuity lines from 20/200 to 20/10.

The charts should be printed at a physical size of 16" × 24" (1150 pt × 1725 pt. At this size, the characters on the 20/20 line subtend 5 minutes of arc when viewed at 6 meters (20 feet), which is the technical specification of the Snellen chart.

When the charts are printed at this size, the two horizontal lines below the 20/30 and 20/20 lines are exactly 8" (576 pt) long. These length markers are my own addition.

If the chart is printed at any other size, the viewing distance changes. To compute the correct viewing distance, $d$, measure the length of these lines, $L$ (in inches) and use $$d = 6 \times L / 8$$

For example, if I print this chart to fit onto an 8.5" × 11" page, these lines are 3.47". Thus, my smaller chart should be viewed from $6 \times 3.47 / 8 = 2.60 \, \text{m}$ (8.53 ft).

Numbers on the left provide visual acuity in feet. Numbers on the right show the denominator of the acuity in feet and its equivalent in meters, rounded to the nearest integer.

The order of the 61 characters on the charts has been limit uniformity and avoid easily perceived patterns—especially in the case of the genetic sequence Snellen. These restrictions (e.g. limit in the number of repeated n-grams) apply across linebreaks.

9 character Snellen

This is the canonical Snellen chart, using the 9 original characters.

$E FP LDO CETD ZOFEL DCZTFP PFLOZDE OZPCELTD TLEFDCOP EDOPTFLC LTCZOEPF FODLPZCT$
1. no more than 8 instances of any character and no fewer than 6
2. no double characters (e.g. PP does not occur)
3. no more than 2 repeats of any 2-gram (e.g. LT ... LT ... LT does not occur)
4. all 3-grams are unique (e.g. LDO does not repeat)
5. no identical adjacent characters across lines within a distance of one positions.
6. for a given line, the characters at the same position in the previous 6 lines are all different.
A technically accurate Snellen chart using traditional 9 characters C D E F L O P T Z rendered as optotypes. Print at 16 in × 24 in. (BUY ARTWORK)

26 character Snellen

This chart uses all the letters of the alphabet and is typset using my Snellen font redesign.

1. all letters of the alphabet are used
2. no more than 3 instances of any character
3. no double characters (e.g. PP does not occur)
4. all n-grams (n = 2, 3, ...) are unique
5. on a given line, all characters are unique
6. no identical adjacent characters across lines within a distance of 8 positions.
7. for a given line, the characters at the same position in all other lines are all different.
$E FP NBJ GCHQ RKVNX PZLSAY IMEXDBU CYRAVQGH LWKPIJZO XUBHRFEV JTDIGSYZ QFWLMUKA$
A technically accurate Snellen chart using all 26 letters of the alphabet rendered as optotypes. All n-grams are unique. Print at 16 in × 24 in. (BUY ARTWORK)

genomic sequence Snellen

Since I work in a genome center, the one below is the one we'd use. Thanks to Dr. Nüket Bilgen for suggesting that the chart start with ATG (start codon) and end with one of the stop codons (TAG, TGA, but not TAA since no two adjoining characters can be the same).

1. no more than 19 instances of any character and no fewer than 15
2. no double characters (e.g. AA does not occur)
3. no more than 7 repeats of any 2-gram
4. no more than 4 repeats of any 3-gram
5. no more than 2 repeats of any 4-gram or 5-gram
6. for a given line, the characters at the same position in the previous 2 lines are different
7. chart starts with start codon ATG
8. chart ends with stop codon TAG, which appears only once; the other two stop codons (TGA, TAA) do not appear on the chart
$A TG CAT ATCG GCATA CGTCTG TACAGAC GTGTACGA CGAGCTAT ACTCTGTG GTCAGAGC CGAGATAG$
A technically accurate Snellen chart using four genetic bases A T G C rendered as optotypes. The chart begins with the start codon ATG and ends in the stop codon TGA, which appears only once in the chart. Print at 16 in × 24 in. (BUY ARTWORK)

The best alignments of this chart's sequence are to fungus (Leptosphaeria maculans lepidii, 35/42, 83%) and a tapeworm (Diphyllobothrium latum, 24/26, 92%). Thanks to Lorraine May for this observation!

nautical flags Snellen

Charts ahoy!

$Z KE CHG XVRM YTWUS JQFINB EZAOXLD NHKVCUGF SWRMIAZP DBTOJYXE FZHLNUKA IVGMYCWR$
A technically accurate Snellen chart using the nautical flag alphabet rendered as optotypes. Print at 16 in × 24 in. (BUY ARTWORK)

The flag alphabet has been designed to match, as closely as possible, to the style of the Snellen optotypes. In some cases this required that the geometry of the flag had to be adjusted—this may upset the purists and cause havoc on the waterways.

Proportions of colors has been adjusted in some flags to fit symmetrically into the 5 × 5 optotype grid. The checker of N is now a 5 × 5 grid. The number of stripes in Y has been reduced—the width of each stripe is now 20% of the width of the flag. Proportions in C, D, J, R, S, T, W and X have been adjusted so that color strips are a multiple of 20% of the width of the flag. The cross in M and V matches the X used in the Snellen font.

Snellen optotypes for the nautical flag alphabet. (zoom)

eyes on the elements

Elements are sorted in order of abundance. The numbers on the left show the max and min $-log_{10}$ abundance of the elements listed on a given line. For example, 3.0/3.3 for the "N Si Mg S" line in the abundance of elements in the universe indicates that abundance of N is 0.001 and of S is 0.0005.

You can download my tidy plain-text table of abundance of elements in the universe (original source, 83 elements) and table of abundance of elements in the body (original source, 60 elements). These have been parsed from the original sources and give the $-log_{10}$ abundance for various elements.

Snellen Chart of abundance of the elements in the universe. (BUY ARTWORK)
Snellen Chart of abundance of the elements in the human body. (BUY ARTWORK)

eyes on physical constants

44 of the most interesting physical constants ranging from the very large (Planck temperature $T_p = 1.4 \times 10^{32} \mathrm{K}$) to the very small (cosmological constant $\Lambda = 1.19 \times 10^{-52} \mathrm{m}^{-2}$). You can download the table of constants and their values.

Snellen Chart of physical constants. (BUY ARTWORK)

eyes on mathematical symbols

44 intriguing and perhaps mysterious mathematical symbols ranging from common equality $=$ to the esoteric normal subgroup $\triangleleft$.

Snellen Chart of mathematical operators and symbols. (BUY ARTWORK)

where's the chart?

The chart is the visual form of a rhetorical question. The letter layout here is the same as in the canonical Snellen chart, which is limited to the 10 Sloan letters C, D, E, F, L, N, O, P, T, Z.

Snellen Chart typeset in Braille. (BUY ARTWORK)
Snellen Chart typeset in Braille. Variant #2. (BUY ARTWORK)
Snellen Chart typeset in Braille. Variant #3. (BUY ARTWORK)
VIEW ALL

Happy 2017 $\pi$ Day—Star Charts, Creatures Once Living and a Poem

Tue 14-03-2017

on a brim of echo,

capsized chamber
drawn into our constellation, and cooling.
—Paolo Marcazzan

Celebrate $\pi$ Day (March 14th) with star chart of the digits. The charts draw 40,000 stars generated from the first 12 million digits.

12,000,000 digits of $\pi$ interpreted as a star catalogue. (details)

The 80 constellations are extinct animals and plants. Here you'll find old friends and new stories. Read about how Desmodus is always trying to escape or how Megalodon terrorizes the poor Tecopa! Most constellations have a story.

Find friends and stories among the 80 constellations of extinct animals and plants. Oh look, a Dodo guardings his eggs! (details)

This year I collaborate with Paolo Marcazzan, a Canadian poet, who contributes a poem, Of Black Body, about space and things we might find and lose there.

Check out art from previous years: 2013 $\pi$ Day and 2014 $\pi$ Day, 2015 $\pi$ Day and and 2016 $\pi$ Day.

Data in New Dimensions: convergence of art, genomics and bioinformatics

Tue 07-03-2017

Art is science in love.
— E.F. Weisslitz

A behind-the-scenes look at the making of our stereoscopic images which were at display at the AGBT 2017 Conference in February. The art is a creative collaboration with Becton Dickinson and The Linus Group.

Its creation began with the concept of differences and my writeup of the creative and design process focuses on storytelling and how concept of differences is incorporated into the art.

Oh, and this might be a good time to pick up some red-blue 3D glasses.

A stereoscopic image and its interpretive panel of single-cell transcriptomes of blood cells: diseased versus healthy control.

Interpreting P values

Thu 02-03-2017
A P value measures a sample’s compatibility with a hypothesis, not the truth of the hypothesis.

This month we continue our discussion about $P$ values and focus on the fact that $P$ value is a probability statement about the observed sample in the context of a hypothesis, not about the hypothesis being tested.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Interpreting P values. (read)

Given that we are always interested in making inferences about hypotheses, we discuss how $P$ values can be used to do this by way of the Benjamin-Berger bound, $\bar{B}$ on the Bayes factor, $B$.

Heuristics such as these are valuable in helping to interpret $P$ values, though we stress that $P$ values vary from sample to sample and hence many sources of evidence need to be examined before drawing scientific conclusions.

Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2017) Points of Significance: Interpreting P values. Nature Methods 14:213–214.

Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2017) Points of significance: P values and the search for significance. Nature Methods 14:3–4.

Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2013) Points of significance: Significance, P values and t–tests. Nature Methods 10:1041–1042.

Snellen Charts—Typography to Really Look at

Sat 18-02-2017

Another collection of typographical posters. These ones really ask you to look.

Snellen charts designed using physical constants, Braille and elemental abundances in the universe and human body.

The charts show a variety of interesting symbols and operators found in science and math. The design is in the style of a Snellen chart and typset with the Rockwell font.

Essentials of Data Visualization—8-part video series

Fri 17-02-2017

In collaboration with the Phil Poronnik and Kim Bell-Anderson at the University of Sydney, I'm delighted to share with you our 8-part video series project about thinking about drawing data and communicating science.

Essentials of Data Visualization: Thinking about drawing data and communicating science.

We've created 8 videos, each focusing on a different essential idea in data visualization: encoding, shapes, color, uncertainty, design, drawing missing or unobserved data, labels and process.

The videos were designed as teaching materials. Each video comes with a slide deck and exercises.