1. "Imagination or visualization, and in particular the use of diagrams, has a crucial part to play in scientific investigation." Rene Descartes, 1637

2. Scientific Data Visualization

3. What is scientific visualization?
Exploring data graphically to gain insight and a deeper understanding of the information it represents

6. History of Visualization Techniques...
Coordinate Systems:
1137: China, use of cartesian coordinates to
show cities and coastline features in a
latitude longitude grid
1603: Johann Beyer plotted star positions
based on observations of Danish
astronomer, Tycho Brayhe.
1637: Rene Descartes reintroduced the
cartesian coordinate system into
mathematics

7. Scatter Plots:
1855: Dr. John Snow plotted the location of homes of cholera victims

9. Line Charts: Line Charts: 1785: William Playfair published charts
10th Century: illustration of the inclination of the
planetary orbits as a function of time
Line Charts:
1785: William Playfair published charts
describing various economical
phenomena
Line Charts:

11. Contour Maps: 1782: Map by Marcellin Du Carla suggests how
to illustrate height using isolines.
1748: Contour lines for zero elevation appeared
in the Carte Geometrique de la France. The
use of contour lines for elevation became
common use in the British Ordinance
Survey Act of 1841.

12. Contour Maps: 1817: Alexander von Humboldt created
isothermal charts to show geographic
distribution of temperature.

14. Height Maps: 1879: Luigi Perozzo plotted population as
height for the Swedish census

16. Streamlines, Arrow Plots, Particle Traces:
1686: Edmond Halley produced a meteorological chart, a map of the world showing the prevailing winds with arrow plots.

18. Volume Rendering:
1896: Elihu Thompson generation of stereo
X-rays

19. Volume Rendering: 1957: Bang and Bang achieve three
dimensional visualization of specimens.
Slices were photographed in an electron
microscope and images were traced onto
acetate sheets, manually stacked up with
separators.