An interactive, discipline-independent data visualization system
Lloyd A. Treinish · Computers in Physics · 1989
Critical to the understanding of data is the ability to provide pictorial or visual representations of that data. Given the ability to access data via an appropriate, easy-to-use interface, a researcher must employ tools to visualize data as one important mechanism in the data analysis process. Visualization, then, is a method of computing that gives visual form to complex data utilizing graphics and imaging technology. To support correlative data analysis (i.e., working with data from a variety of sources to study a problem of scientific interest), there is an obvious focus on generic visualization via the development of discipline-independent visualization techniques. The NSSDC (National Space Science Data Center) Graphics System (NGS) has been developed to provide an interactive discipline-independent toolbox for nonprogrammers to achieve such visualization of data. The NGS supports displays of any arbitrary multidimensional subset of any data set by providing a large variety of different representation schemes, all of which are supported by implicit animation (i.e., slicing of a data set into sequences). In addition, the design of the NGS provides an open-ended framework for data visualization, so that new capabilities can be added. New tools have been implemented as a result of NSSDC’s research in several areas of computer science, including novel computer graphics rendering techniques and data structures.