Introduction to Scientific Visualization

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-XIII

   PDF

2. Introduction

   Pages 1-5

3. Potential and Pitfalls

   Pages 7-25

4. Models and Software

   Pages 27-36

5. Colour in Scientific Visualization

   Pages 37-54

6. Choosing Techniques

   Pages 55-68

7. Visualizing Scalars

   Pages 69-102

8. Visualizing Vectors

   Pages 103-115

9. Bibliography and Further Reading

   Pages 117-124

10. Back Matter

    Pages 125-147

    PDF

AboutThisBook This book was ?rst suggested to Springer in 2004, though its origins go back to changes made two years earlier to the structure of the University of Hull’s Computer Science programme. At the same time, my own visualization - search was leading towards a systematic view of data and techniques that I felt could be educationally valuable. In 2003 I thus sat down with some trepidation to write a visualization course founded on research in the area but nonetheless accessible to students. This course could, however, involve no mathematics beyond GCSE, in line with university admissions practices of that time. Writing the course involved generating many new illustrations, in the form of both line drawings and visualization screenshots and, wi- ing to get maximum mileage out of this e?ort, the idea of writing a book to accompany the course came about. At the University of Hull, our practical visualization teaching is based on IRIS Explorer, an application builder-type package from NAG Ltd. Ori- nally this book was to have been both an introduction to visualization and a handbook for beginners in IRIS Explorer, with ‘virtual laboratories’ running throughout it to illustrate certain points. Following comments from revi- ers, however, its emphasis has changed.

• Computer
• Data Visualisation
• Scientific Visualization
• architecture
• computer science
• information visualization
• learning
• visualization

From the reviews:

"Wright, after an overview of the field, presents the basics of color, provides an exemplary taxonomy of visualization techniques … . the book also contains a bibliography, references, solutions to exercises, a list of useful Web sites, common abbreviations, a glossary, and a comprehensive index. … all the visualization techniques are lucidly described, with clear … examples, corresponding charts, and color plates. … Readers looking for a short and accessible introduction to visualization techniques can’t go wrong with Wright’s book." (D. Spinellis, ACM Computing Reviews, September, 2008)

• Department of Computer Science, University of Hull, Hull, UK

  Helen Wright

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