Why dynamic figures are useful for better understanding in STEM
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Published: 24 t h July 2026
Example PDF on how Scientific Papers can profit from Viewnamic
Daniel Weiss and Felix Dreher1
Dynamic and interactive figures have become increasingly important in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Compared to static illustrations, they offer the viewer a variety of advantages that can significantly improve the understanding of an issue. Dynamic illustrations allow complex relationships to be displayed clearly and observed in real time. Parameters can be changed and the effects on the overall system can be visualized directly. This is especially important in STEM, since it is often difficult to grasp complex relationships by static illustrations alone.
In this document, we will address the question of why dynamic figures are better than static figures in terms of a better understanding. To do so, we will look at specific instances from various fields and show the advantages of dynamic figures for each example. To integrate the dynamic figures directly into the document we use Viewnamic (opens in a new tab). We will show that dynamic and interactive figures not only facilitate the understanding of relationships but also have the potential to generate new insights.
Trigonometric functions
Sine, cosine, and tangent are fundamental concepts in mathematics and trigonometry. They describe the ratios between the sides of a right-angled triangle, making them essential for calculat-
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ing unknown angles and lengths. Beyond geometry, however, trigonometric functions are also used to model periodic phenomena, such as wave motions and oscillations. At first glance, a static triangle and a continuous wave seem to have little in common. How are the two connected? This relationship is visually demonstrated in the animation in Figure 1:
Figure 1: Unit circle in the left plot and Sine, Cosine and Arc length in the right plot. Depending on the angle of rotation sine and cosine take different values between -1 and 1 in a periodic behavior.
To understand the relationship, we begin with a right-angled triangle with a hypotenuse of length
1. This hypotenuse represents the radius of a unit circle. The lengths of the triangle's other two sides
— the adjacent and opposite legs — correspond directly to the values of cosine and sine, respectively. As the radius rotates around the circle, the angle 𝛼 changes and the lengths of these two sides fluctuate continuously. Plotting these changing values over time (or angle / arc length) traces out smooth, periodic wave signals. This geometric relationship also clearly illustrates why sine and cosine share the exact same wave shape, phaseshifted by 90∘ relative to each other.
Climate Change
Figure 2: Visualization of increasing temperatures around the globe. Especially within the last 30 years we are observing a rapid temperature change [1].
Climate change presents humanity with an unprecedented global challenge. In today’s datadriven era, we have the capability to record and analyze global temperature trends at scale, which are most commonly visualized using static heat maps. However, static imagery fails to effectively capture the rate of temperature change. Yet, it is precisely this velocity that underlines the severity of the crisis. Never before in recorded history has the Earth experienced such a rapid rise in temperature. Comparing static snapshots side-by-side simply cannot convey this momentum. An animation over time bridges this gap. In Figure 2 the average temperature is calculated by the mean temperature between 1951 and 1980. If the temperature deviation within 3 or 4 years is above that average temperature, the areas inside the specific parts of the map are colored red and if the temperature within 3 or 4 years has been lower than the average temperature from 1951 to 1980, the areas are colored blue. By revealing temporal progression, the dynamic figure makes the acceleration immediately visible: while temperature shifts have grown increasingly pronounced over
the past three centuries, the rate of warming has surged to unprecedented levels over the last 30 years.
3D Crystal Structures
Solid-state physics and materials science rely heavily on three-dimensional spatial reasoning. Visualizing complex crystal lattices, internal symmetries, and spatial orientations from traditional two-dimensional textbook figures is notoriously difficult. Static projections inherently obscure spatial relationships, hide occluded atoms, and make depth perception challenging. Interactive 3D models eliminate this limitation by giving readers full spatial control. By enabling real-time rotation, panning, and perspective changes, dynamic visualizations transform abstract geometric concepts into clear, tangible structures. Figure 3 demonstrates this capability through an interactive model of a silicon crystal lattice in the diamond cubic structure, based on the classic model by William Shockley.
Figure 3: Silicon Crystal Lattice [2].
The darker atoms identify the primitive cell, representing the smallest repeating structural unit that builds the crystal. Intersecting the lattice are three colored planes representing the primary Miller indices: orange for (100), green for (110), and purple for (111). While a static image forces the reader to mentally construct a 3D object from a single flat perspective, this interactive model allows the user to rotate the lattice freely. Readers can align the planes directly along line-of-sight angles to inspect atomic density, symmetry, and plane intersections from any viewpoint.
Four-Stroke Engine
A four-stroke engine is an internal combustion engine that operates through four distinct stages, or strokes: intake (1), compression (2), power (3), and exhaust (4). Each of those stages is displayed in Figure 4.
Figure 4: The four stages of a four-stroke engine [3].
In the intake stroke, the cylinder piston moves downwards, drawing air and fuel into the cylinder. Subsequently, in the compression stroke, the piston moves up and compresses the air-fuel mixture. During the power stroke, the spark plug ignites the mixture, causing a rapid expansion of gas and forcing the piston down. Lastly, in the exhaust stroke, the piston moves up again, pushing out the spent gases through the exhaust valve. This process repeats continuously, with each stroke occurring once every two rotations of the crankshaft. Multistage processes and mechanical principles are often complex to describe or require a series of figures to visualize them statically. Through a single
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dynamic figure, the viewer gains a better understanding of the internal processes, timing, and how each component interacts with the others.
Interactive Experimental Setups
Documenting complex experimental setups, such as the optical system in Figure 5, often forces authors to choose between macroscopic context and crucial microscopic detail. In multi-component setups, each element features specific technical details vital to the validity and reproducibility of the results. Traditional publications typically rely on a single overview figure, forcing these crucial details into separate supplementary material. Interactive click dummies bridge this gap, allowing readers to intuitively explore an experimental system layer by layer directly within the document, all without disrupting the reading flow of the manuscript.
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Figure 5: Interactive Experimental Setup – click inside the image!
You can click inside Figure 5 to have a closer look into the single components of the experimental setup. By hovering over the image with your mouse (or finger if you are using a smartphone) the different areas of the interactive image are highlighted.
Conclusion
Research is about generating new knowledge and passing it on to other people. For this reason, it is important that other people understand what has been done in a research paper. Especially in STEM it is important, that newly generated knowledge can be verified or falsified by other research groups. Clear instructions on how to recreate experiments are therefore crucial. Figure 6 illustrates the difficulty of following and understanding some instructions, especially if they reach a certain level of complexity. Such instructions may
Many research groups today already have nice visualizations of their work and results, which they present on their websites or at conferences. However, until now, it remains challenging to easily include the dynamic content directly into the research paper while sticking to the century old and established process of academic publishing. With the help of Viewnamic the dynamic and interactive content can be viewed directly inside the PDF. With its solution Viewnamic tries to remove current barriers that cause authors to not include their dynamic content into their research papers.
include an experimental setup, the handling of a References
machine or the sequence of processes that are important to recreate the work of the authors. In some cases, dynamic figures make these instructions clearer and more concise for the reader, allowing them to understand them more quickly.
Figure 6: Homer Simpson struggling to quickly understand the instructions of the power plants user manual [4].
As the previous examples have shown, dynamic and interactive figures can enhance the viewer's understanding of complex issues. The benefits of using dynamic and interactive figures include the possibility to represent a multitude of information, better display the rate of change of data, show multistage processes and to depict spatial arrangements of three-dimensional objects. The showcases so far only include simple examples, that can be understood by a huge group of readers. Delving deeper into various topics can reveal even more useful applications for dynamic figures.
[1] NASA, „2018 was the Fourth Hottest Year on Record” (Feb. 2019) https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13142 (opens in a new tab)
[2] Credits: Lydiatheele @Sketchfab. License: CC Attribution https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/siliconcrystal-lattice-73e292f32ffe4ca490e166faeba317e7 (opens in a new tab)
[3] Wikipedia, „Four-stroke engine“ (Last opened: 24th of July 2026) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-stroke_engine (opens in a new tab)
[4| GIFER (Last opened: 24th of July 2026) https://gifer.com/en/7o6A (opens in a new tab)
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