| Scientific Visualization |
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USAGE AND DISTINCTION OF THE TERMS In common usage, the slightly more general term information visualization is used to encompasses all visualizations that do not deal with the Life Sciences or Engineering . Another aspect is termed '''visual analytics''' - the formation of abstract visual metaphors in combination with a human information discourse (interaction) that enables detection of the expected and discovery of the unexpected within massive, dynamically changing information spaces. These suites of technologies apply to almost all fields but are being driven by critical needs in biology and national security. 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, wind flows). Information visualization handles more abstract Data Structure s such as Tree s or Graph s. Visual analytics is especially concerned with sensemaking and Reasoning .The distinction between "natural" and complex data structures, however is blurred, keeping in mind that graphs can in general represented by Adjacency Matrices . 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 Package s encompass both. OVERVIEW 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 Photo s which 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 which show real Spacecraft in action, out in the void far beyond Earth, or on other Planet s. Dynamic forms of visualisation such as Educational Animation have the potential to enhance learning about systems that change over time. 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. 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. IN THE MEDICAL AND LIFE SCIENCES Desktop programs capable of presenting interactive Models Of Molecules and microbiological entities are becoming relatively common. 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 . Medical Imaging is a huge application domain for scientific visualization with an emphasis on enhancing Imaging results graphically, e.g. using Pseudo-color ing or overlaying of Plot s. Real-time visualization can serve to simultaneusly Image Analysis results within or beside an analysed (e.g. Segmented ) scan. RELATED RESEARCH AREAS
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Information visualization
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Academic Conferences One of the top academic conferences for new research in information visualization is the annually held IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (InfoVis). There is also the annually held International Conference on Information Visualization (IV). |