Thesis Art

What is Thesis Art?

Each Thesis Art piece is a unique rendering of a students’ final thesis in the S-CCS lab. It is both a public statement, but also a thank-you from the supervisor(Benedikt Ehinger) for the hard work students put into the scientific effort during their thesis.

How is it done?

Each piece goes through several creative and technical phases. It all starts with an idea: What should be visualized, and what could it look like? Initial sketches are programmed often on the computer, using interactive sliders to quickly adjust parameters and sketch ideas. This approach allows Benedikt to refine the concept step by step until arriving at the final version.

Once the basic idea is set, he extracts and processes the texts from the thesis. Then, focus is shifted to details like colors, layout, and other adjustments. Technically, he primarily works with JuliaLang and his software package, ThesisArt.jl.

For anyone interested in getting creative with scientific works themselves – give it a try, it is Open Source!

What are the challenges?

The challenges frequently don’t stem from a lack of imagination but rather from the limitations of the tools. Many programs, even professional tools like Adobe Illustrator, struggle with the complex designs and the many glyphs. Even the printing process can be tricky: it often takes many prints to get the colors, arrangement and technical difficulties sorted out.

Still, the result makes it all worthwhile. Thesis Art transforms research into something extraordinary – a vivid, artistic interpretation of complex ideas. And for the students, it’s an exciting moment: seeing their work come to life in an entirely new and unexpected way.