A Concise Introduction to Scientific Visualization : Past, Present, and Future

Scientific visualization has always been an integral part of discovery, starting first with simplified drawings of the pre-Enlightenment and progressing to present day.Mathematical formalism often supersedes visual methods, but their use is at the core of the mental process.As historical examples, a spatial description of flow led to electromagnetic theory, and without visualization of crystals, structural chemistry would not exist.With the advent of computer graphics technology, visualization has become a driving force in modern computing.A Concise Introduction to Scientific Visualization – Past, Present, and Future serves as a primer to visualization without assuming prior knowledge.It discusses both the history of visualization in scientific endeavour, and how scientific visualization is currently shaping the progress of science as a multi-disciplinary domain.