Scientific Visualization Tutorial
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
What is Scientific Visualization?
Scientific visualization, sometimes referred to in shorthand as SciVis,
is the representation of data graphically as a means of gaining understanding
and insight into the data. It is sometimes referred to as visual data analysis.
This allows the researcher to gain insight into the system that is studied in
ways previously impossible.
What it is not- It is important to differentiate between scientific
visualization and presentation graphics. Presentation graphics is primarily
concerned with the communication of information and results in ways that are
easily understood. In scientific visualization, we seek to understand the data.
However, often the two methods are intertwined.
From a computing perspective, SciVis is part of a greater field called
visualization. This involves research in computer graphics, image processing,
high performance computing, and other areas. The same tools that are used for
SciVis may be applied to animation, or multimedia presentation, for example.
As a science, scientific visualization is the study concerned with the
interactive display and analysis of data. Often one would like the ability to
do real-time visualization of data from any source. Thus our purview is
information, scientific, or engineering visualization and closely related
problems such as computational steering or multivariate analysis. The approaches
developed are general, and the goal is to make them applicable to datasets of
any size whatever while still retaining high interactivity. As an emerging
science, its strategy is to develop fundamental ideas leading to general tools
for real applications. This pursuit is multidisciplinary in that it uses the
same techniques across many areas of study..
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