Advances in Scientific Visualization

Scientific visualization is a new and rapidly growing area in which efforts from computer graphics research and many scientific and engineering disciplines are integrated. Its aim is to enhance interpretation and understanding by scientists of large amounts of data from measurements or complex computer simulations, using computer generated images and animation sequences. It exploits the power of human visual perception to identify trends and structures, and recognize shapes and patterns. Development of new numerical simulation methods in many areas increasingly depends on visualization as an effective way to obtain an intuitive understanding of a problem. This book contains a selection of papers presented at the 2nd Eurographics Workshop on Visualization in Scientific Computing, held in Delft, The Netherlands, in April 1991. It reflects the state of the art in visualization research and shows a wide variety of experimental systems and imaginative applications. The issues addressed are visualization tool and system design, new presentation techniques for volume data and vector fields, and numerous case studies in scientific visualization. Application areas include geology, medicine, fluid dynamics, molecular science and environmental protection.