What is visualization? What is visualization?

In recent years, the role of visual thinking in scientific research and daily life is becoming more and more obvious, visualization (or scientific visualization) more and more attention. The study shows that people gain more than 60% of the total information obtained through visual information. The International Cartographic Association (ICA), in collaboration with the Computer Graphics Society in 1996, explores how computer graphics technology can be used more effectively in cartography to facilitate the connection and exchange of scientific computing visualization with map visualization. In the rapid development of computer technology today, map visualization (hereinafter referred to as visualization) has become one of the core content of modern cartography.

Visualization of Scientific Computing (visualizationinscientificcomputing) is a new research field proposed and developed in the late the 1980s. February 1987, the National Science Foundation held its first meeting in Washington on visualization of scientific computing, which said that "applying graphics and image technology to scientific computing is a whole new field" and that "scientists need not only analyze computational data from computers, but also understand the changes in data during the calculation." , which need the help of computer graphics and image processing technology. The Conference named the field of Visualizationinscientificcomputing, referred to as scientificvisualization.

According to the definition given by the American Computer Imaging Professional Committee (CIP), Scientific Computing visualization is "a computational method that converts data into images so that researchers can observe their calculations." This approach makes invisible changes to visible, profound insights, enriches the process of scientific discovery, and in many areas makes fundamental changes in the way scientists study. In a report on priority support for Scientific Computing Visualization (VISC), presented by the National Science Foundation in 1987, visualization is called "a computational method of translating abstract symbols into geometries so that researchers can observe the processes and results of their simulations and computations, including the understanding and synthesis of images." That is, visualization is a tool used to interpret image data from the input computer and generate images based on complex multidimensional data. The main study is how people and computers can consistently accept, use and exchange visual information. Intuitively, the visualization of scientific computing is a computational method of how to turn scientific data into visual information that can help scientists understand it. In short, scientific computing visualization is the subject of applying computer graphics and image processing technology to computational science.

The formation of visualization of scientific computation is the fruit of the rapid development of modern science and technology. Modern society is the information society, today is an era of information explosion, we are exposed to a message of the ocean. But our information processing and analysis ability, means is very insufficient. For scientific workers, the dilemma is even more pronounced. Since the the 1980s, with the popularization of electronic computers, the contradiction between the mass production of scientific data and the lack of effective interpretation of these data is increasingly acute. A large number of calculation and observation data are generated continuously, because can not be processed in time, can only store large amounts of data, resulting in a greater waste. On the other hand, when scientists use computers for computing, they not only need to analyze the final results, but also want to interpret the intermediate results of the calculations.

The visualization of scientific computing combines graphic generation technology, image processing technology and human-computer interaction technology, which mainly produces graphics from complex multidimensional data, and can analyze and understand image data in the input computer. It involves many fields such as computer graphics, image processing, CAD, computer-based Vision and man-machine interaction technology.