A scientific visualization of an extremely large simulation of a Raleigh-Taylor instability caused by two mixing fluids.

Scientific- (or data-), and Information visualization are branches of computer graphics and user interface design that are concerned with presenting data to users, by means of images. The goal of this area is usually to improve understanding of the data being presented. For example, scientists interpret potentially huge quantities of laboratory or simulation data or the results from sensors out in the field to aid reasoning, hypothesis building and cognition. The field of data mining offers many abstract visualizations related to these visualization types. They are active research areas, drawing on theory in information graphics, computer graphics, human-computer interaction and cognitive science. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... For the journal by ACM SIGGRAPH, see Computer Graphics (Publication). ... The user interface is the part of a system exposed to users. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into image (disambiguation). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article is about the general term. ... Not to be confused with censure, censer, or censor. ... Reasoning is the mental (cognitive) process of looking for reasons to support beliefs, conclusions, actions or feelings. ... Look up Hypothesis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up Cognition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Data mining has been defined as the nontrivial extraction of implicit, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from data [1] and the science of extracting useful information from large data sets or databases [2]. Data mining involves sorting through large amounts of data and picking out relevant information. ... The Washington Metro subway map Information graphics or infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge. ... For the journal by ACM SIGGRAPH, see Computer Graphics (Publication). ... // Human–computer interaction (HCI), alternatively man–machine interaction (MMI) or computer–human interaction (CHI), is the study of interaction between people (users) and computers. ... Cognitive science is usually defined as the scientific study either of mind or of intelligence (e. ...

Terminology

Information visualization, scientific visualization and visual analytics have lots of overlapping goals and techniques. There is currently no clear consensus on the boundaries between these fields, but broadly speaking the three areas can be distinguished as follows:

• Scientific visualization deals with data that has a natural geometric structure (e.g. MRI data or wind flows).
• Information visualization handles more abstract data structures, such as trees or graphs.
• Visual analytics includes scientific investigation of the use of visualization in sense-making and reasoning.

The distinction between "natural" and complex data structures, however is blurred, keeping in mind that graphs can generally be represented by adjacency matrices. In common usage, the slightly more general term information visualization is used to encompass all visualizations that do not deal with the life sciences or engineering. Another basic distinction could be made on the basis of numerical vs. non-numerical data. In practice, however this distinction becomes artificial because the levels of measurement that are used in statistics and statistical packages encompass both. The mri are a fictional alien species in the Faded Sun Trilogy of C.J. Cherryh. ... A binary tree, a simple type of branching linked data structure. ... A simple example unordered tree In computer science, a tree is a widely-used data structure that emulates a tree structure with a set of linked nodes. ... Reasoning is the mental (cognitive) process of looking for reasons to support beliefs, conclusions, actions or feelings. ... In mathematics and computer science, the adjacency matrix of a finite directed or undirected graph G on n vertices is the n × n matrix where the nondiagonal entry is the number of edges from vertex i to vertex j, and the diagonal entry is either twice the number of loops... Biology studies the variety of life (clockwise from top-left) E. coli, tree fern, gazelle, Goliath beetle Biology is the science of life (from the Greek words bios = life and logos = word). ... Engineering is the applied science of acquiring and applying knowledge to design, analysis, and/or construction of works for practical purposes. ... The level of measurement of a variable in mathematics and statistics is a classification that was proposed in order to describe the nature of information contained within numbers assigned to objects and, therefore, within the variable. ... This article is about the field of statistics. ... A statistical package is a kind of large computer program that is specialised for statistical analysis. ...

A related term, visual analytics, focuses on human interaction with visualization systems. Visual analytics has been defined as "the science of analytical reasoning supported by the interactive visual interface" ^{[citation needed]}. Its focus is on human information discourse (interaction) within massive, dynamically changing information spaces. Visual analytics research often concentrates on support for perceptual and cognitive operations that enable users to detect the expected and discover the unexpected in complex information space. Technologies resulting from visual analytics find their application in almost all fields, but are being driven by critical needs in biology and national security.

Overview

The Ptolemy world map, reconstituted from Ptolemy's Geographia (circa 150), indicating the countries of "Serica" and "Sinae" (China) at the extreme right, beyond the island of "Taprobane" (Sri Lanka, oversized) and the "Aurea Chersonesus" (Southeast Asian peninsula).

Charles Minard's information graphic of Napoleon's march

The use of visualization to present information is not a new phenomenon. It has been used in maps, scientific drawings, and data plots for over a thousand years. Examples from cartography include Ptolemy's Geographia (2nd Century AD), a map of China (1137 AD), and Minard's map (1861) of Napoleon's invasion of Russia half a century earlier. Most of the concepts learned in devising these images carry over in a straight forward manner to computer visualization. Edward Tufte has written two critically acclaimed books that explain many of these principles. Download high resolution version (1344x915, 810 KB)Ptolemys 150 CE World Map (redrawn in the 15th century). ... Download high resolution version (1344x915, 810 KB)Ptolemys 150 CE World Map (redrawn in the 15th century). ... Ptolemys world map, reconstituted from Ptolemys Geographia (circa 150), indicating Sinae (China) at the extreme right, beyond the island of Taprobane (Sri Lanka, oversized) and the Aurea Chersonesus (Southeast Asian peninsula). ... The Roman army consists of 400,000 men. ... Seres (Σηρες) was the ancient Greek and Roman name for the northwestern part of China and its inhabitants. ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (988x565, 87 KB)Minards graph showing Napoleons advance across Europe and into Russia (1885) This map by Charles Joseph Minard shows the advance of Napoleons army into Russia. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (988x565, 87 KB)Minards graph showing Napoleons advance across Europe and into Russia (1885) This map by Charles Joseph Minard shows the advance of Napoleons army into Russia. ... Cartography or mapmaking (in Greek chartis = map and graphein = write) is the study and practice of making maps or globes. ... The Geographia is Ptolemys main work besides the Almagest. ... Categories: Possible copyright violations ... For other uses, see Napoleon (disambiguation). ... Edward Rolf Tufte (IPA /ˈtʌf. ...

Computer graphics has from its beginning been used to study scientific problems. However, in its early days the lack of graphics power often limited its usefulness. The recent emphasis on visualization started in 1987 with the special issue of Computer Graphics on Visualization in Scientific Computing. Since then there have been several conferences and workshops, co-sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society and ACM SIGGRAPH, devoted to the general topic, and special areas in the field, for example volume visualization. Scientific computing (or computational science) is the field of study concerned with constructing mathematical models and numerical solution techniques and using computers to analyze and solve scientific and engineering problems. ... An organizational unit of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), established in 1963 when the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) and the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) merged to create the IEEE. At the time of the merger, the AIEE’s Subcommittee on Large-Scale Computing... Founded in 1969, ACM SIGGRAPH is the New York-based Association for Computing Machinerys Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. ...

Most people are familiar with the digital animations produced to present meteorological data during weather reports on television, though few can distinguish between those models of reality and the satellite photos that are also shown on such programs. TV also offers scientific visualizations when it shows computer drawn and animated reconstructions of road or airplane accidents. Some of the most popular examples of scientific visualizations are computer-generated images that show real spacecraft in action, out in the void far beyond Earth, or on other planets. Dynamic forms of visualization, such as educational animation, have the potential to enhance learning about systems that change over time. Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. ... Satellite imagery consists of photographs of Earth or other planets made from artificial satellites. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ... The Space Shuttle Discovery as seen from the International Space Station. ... The eight planets and three dwarf planets of the Solar System. ... Educational animations are animations produced for the specific purpose of fostering learning. ...

Apart from the distinction between interactive visualizations and animation, the most useful categorization is probably between abstract and model-based scientific visualizations. The abstract visualizations show completely conceptual constructs in 2D or 3D. These generated shapes are completely arbitrary. The model-based visualizations either place overlays of data on real or digitally constructed images of reality, or they make a digital construction of a real object directly from the scientific data.

Scientific visualization is usually done with specialized software, though there are a few exceptions, noted below. Some of these specialized programs have been released as Open source software, having very often its origins in universities, within an academic environment where sharing software tools and giving access to the source code is common. There are also many proprietary software packages of scientific visualization tools. Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... It has been suggested that closed source be merged into this article or section. ...

Models and frameworks for building visualizations include the data flow models popularized by systems such as AVS, IRIS Explorer, and VTK toolkit, and data state models in spreadsheet systems such as the Spreadsheet for Visualization and Spreadsheet for Images. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Dataflow architecture. ...

In engineering

Some attribute the birth of Scientific Visualization to the efforts of electrical engineering professionals in the 1980s. This is a highly debated topic. Others point to such efforts as the mainframe generated Chernoff faces of the 1970s, which we owe to the noted mathematician Herman Chernoff. These multivariate expressions of data were, in their original form, not interactive or animated, but their supporters point out that animated and/or interactive versions are now available. Engineering is the applied science of acquiring and applying knowledge to design, analysis, and/or construction of works for practical purposes. ... For other uses, see Mainframe. ... Chernoff faces display multivariate data in the shape of a human face. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ... Herman Chernoff (born July 1, 1923) is an American applied mathematician, statistician and physicist latterly working at Harvard University. ... In statistics, in multivariate data, each data point has more than one scalar component, and often one is concerned with correlations between the components. ...

In the medical and life sciences

Desktop programs capable of presenting interactive models of molecules and microbiological entities are becoming relatively common (Molecular graphics). The field of Bioinformatics and the field of Cheminformatics make a heavy use of these visualization engines for interpreting lab data and for training purposes. Since this field has known its biggest growth spurt at about the same time as the web, it is keen on integrating metadata formats such as the XML based Chemical Markup Language, while being conscious of older formats such as SMILES. Chemical structure refers to the spatial arrangement of atoms in a molecule and the chemical bonds that hold the atoms together. ... Molecular graphics is the discipline and philosophy of studying molecules and their properties through graphical representation. ... Map of the human X chromosome (from the NCBI website). ... Cheminformatics (also known as chemoinformatics and chemical informatics) is the use of computer and informational techniques, applied to a range of problems in the field of chemistry. ... Graphic representation of the world wide web around Wikipedia The World Wide Web (WWW, or simply Web) is an information space in which the items of interest, referred to as resources, are identified by global identifiers called Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI). ... The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose markup language. ... CML (Chemical Markup Language) is a new approach to manage molecular information using tools such as XML and Java. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Medical imaging is a huge application domain for scientific visualization with an emphasis on enhancing imaging results graphically, e.g. using pseudo-coloring or overlaying of plots. Real-time visualization can serve to simultaneously image analysis results within or beside an analyzed (e.g. segmented) scan. Medical imaging designates the ensemble of techniques and processes used to create images of the human body (or parts thereof) for clinical purposes (medical procedures seeking to reveal, diagnose or examine disease) or medical science (including the study of normal anatomy and function). ... Imaging refers to the science of obtaining pictures or more complicated spatial representations, such as animations or 3-D computer graphics models, from physical things. ... A false color image showing the Chesapeake Bay and the city of Baltimore. ... relation graph theory In mathematics, the graph of a function f is the collection of all ordered pairs (x,f(x)). In particular, graph means the graphical representation of this collection, in the form of a curve or surface, together with axes, etc. ... Image analysis is the extraction of meaningful information from images; mainly from digital images by means of digital image processing techniques. ... In image analysis, segmentation is the partioning of a digital image into multiple regions (sets of pixels), according to a given criterion. ...

In business

Data visualization techniques are now commonly used to provide Business intelligence. Performance metrics and Key Performance Indicators are displayed on an interactive Digital dashboard, also known as an executive dashboard, enterprise dashboard or BI dashboard. Business executives use these software applications to monitor the status of business results and activities. For a look at typical dashboard presentations of data visualizations, see The Dashboard Spy, a collection of data visualization dashboards. Business intelligence (BI) is a business management term, which refers to applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to, and analyze data and information about company operations. ... A digital dashboard, also known as an enterprise dashboard or executive dashboard, is a business management tool used to visually ascertain the status (or health) of a business enterprise via key business indicators. ...

See also

• Prefuse Java Toolkit for Interactive Information Visualization
• Starlight Info Vis System, R&D 100 winner
• Tulip C++/Qt framework for navigation, graph drawing, clustering and edition of huge graphs.

Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Much like individual stars coalesce to form constellations, information visualization software developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory helps decision-makers see the importance of individual pieces of data by showing how they relate to one another. ... Established by the editors of R&D Magazine over 41 years ago, the prestigious R&D 100 Awards have been helping companies provide the important initial push a new product needs to compete successfully in the marketplace. ... Tulip is a Computer Graph Visualization program. ...

Related research areas

• Statistics, statistical package, multivariate statistics
• Forecasting, technical analysis
• Data Mining, also known as knowledge-discovery in databases (KDD)
• Graph Drawing
• Scientific modeling
• Cave Automatic Virtual Environment
• Morphological Modeling

This article is about the field of statistics. ... A statistical package is a kind of large computer program that is specialised for statistical analysis. ... Multivariate statistics or multivariate statistical analysis in statistics describes a collection of procedures which involve observation and analysis of more than one statistical variable at a time. ... Look up forecast in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... It has been suggested that some of the information in this articles Criticism or Controversy section(s) be merged into other sections to achieve a more neutral presentation. ... Data mining has been defined as the nontrivial extraction of implicit, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from data [1] and the science of extracting useful information from large data sets or databases [2]. Data mining involves sorting through large amounts of data and picking out relevant information. ... As a branch of Graph theory, Graph drawing applies topology and geometry to derive visual and haptic representations of graphs. ... Scientific modeling is the process of generating abstract or conceptual models. ... A Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (better known by the recursive acronym CAVE) is an immersive virtual reality environment where projectors are directed to four, five or six of the walls of a room-sized cube. ... Morphological analysis (or General Morphological Analysis) is a method developed by Fritz Zwicky (1967, 1969) for exploring all the possible solutions to a multi-dimensional, non-quantified problem complex. ...

References

Chris Johnson may refer to: In sports: Chris L. Johnson (born 1976), Australian rules football player with Brisbane Chris A. Johnson (born 1986), Australian rules footballer with the Melbourne Football Club Chris Johnson (boxer) (born 1971), Jamaican Chris Johnson (football player) (born 1979), American NFL football player In art and... Academic Press (London, New York and San Diego) was an academic book publisher that is now part of Elsevier. ... An organizational unit of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), established in 1963 when the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) and the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) merged to create the IEEE. At the time of the merger, the AIEE’s Subcommittee on Large-Scale Computing... Ben Shneiderman (born August 21, 1947) is an American computer scientist. ... Category: ...

External links

• Amer. Soc. of Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T SIGVIS): Special Interest Group in Visualization Information and Sound
• IEEE Visualization Conference
• National Institute of Standards and Technology
• Scientific Visualization Tutorials, Georgia Tech
• Business Dashboard Examples, a screenshot collection of over 1000 business data visualization digital dashboards including this Business Dashboard of the Day.

Information visualization

• InfoVis-Wiki.net - Wiki about Information Visualization
• http://vam.anest.ufl.edu - A free transparent reality simulation of an anesthesia machine that uses information visualization, including sound and color
• Information Visualization at the Open Directory Project
• VisualComplexity.com - A visual exploration on mapping complex networks
• Wikipedia itself can be visualized by a technique, called history flow.
• The structure of Wikipedia has been visualized; See e.g. ClusterBall, Pathway, WikiViz, WikiCharts, Emergent Mosaic, and Wikipedia Top 50.

• walk2web.com - a visual internet explorer
• Treemapping An implementation of a visualization technique developed by Shneiderman, Ben.

The Open Directory Project (ODP), also known as dmoz (from , its original domain name), is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links owned by Netscape that is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors. ... In the context of Network theory, the term complex network refers to a network (graph) that has certain non-trivial topological features that do not occur in simple networks. ... Wikipedia (IPA: , or ( ) is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. ... Wikipedia (IPA: , or ( ) is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. ... Treemapping is a method for displaying information about entities with a hierarchical relationship, in a space-constrained environment (such as a computer monitor). ... Ben Shneiderman (born August 21, 1947) is an American computer scientist. ...

Visual analytics

• IEEE Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST) Symposium

Periodicals

• The Digital Magazine of InfoVis.net by Juan C. Dürsteler (Spanish | English)
• VAC Views - the Visualization and Analytics Centers Periodical: research updates in the field of visual analytics.

Academic conferences

• IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (InfoVis)
• Graphics Link, including the International Conference on Information Visualization (IV)

Visualization Software

• AVS - Advanced Visual Systems
• OpenDX - The Open Source Software Project Based on IBM's Visualization Data Explorer
• VisiQuest former Khoros