Scientific Visualization

The graphical representation of complex physical phenomena in order to assist scientific investigation and to make inferences that aren’t apparent in numerical form. Typical examples include processing of satellite photographs and 3D representations of molecules and fluids to examine their dynamics.

[Usability First, 2003]

Scientific visualization is a branch of computer graphics which is concerned with the presentation of interactive or animated digital images to scientists who interpret potentially huge quantities of laboratory or simulation data or the results from sensors out in the field.

[Wikipedia, 2005]

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involves scientific data with an inherent physical component

[Tory and Möller, 2004]

In scientific visualization, the graphical models are typically constructed from measured or simulated data representing objects or concepts associated with phenomena from the physical world. As such, the data and, hence, its derived visual representations represent objects that exist in a 1D (one-dimensional), 2D, or 3D object space. Eventually, data will also include a temporal dimension and the presence of spatial and temporal dimensions is a determinant factor in deriving visual representations from the data.

[Ferreira and Levkowitz, 2003]

see also: Visualization, Information Visualization

External Links

• Definitions and Rationale for Visualization (G. Scott Owen, HyperVis - Teaching Scientific Visualization Using Hypermedia, 1999)

References

• [Ferreira and Levkowitz, 2003] Maria Cristina Ferreira de Oliveira, Haim Levkowitz, From Visual Data Exploration to Visual Data Mining: A Survey, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 378-394, July-September, 2003.
• [Usability First, 2003] Usability First, Usability Glossary. Retrieved at: 2003. http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/main.cgi?function=display_term&term_id=682
• [Wikipedia, 2005] Wikipedia, Scientific Visualization. Retrieved at: July 19, 2005. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_visualization
• [Tory and Möller, 2004] Melanie Tory and Torsten Möller, Human Factors in Visualization Research, IEEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 10(1):72-84, January/February 2004.