This section contains archived materials. The material posted here is no longer being maintained.
Organizers and Instructors:
This is a one-week workshop for faculty at undergraduate institutions who want to learn about the new field of Scientific Visualization. The workshop is oriented towards those faculty who want to teach Scientific Visualization as either a complete course or as a module in another course, e.g. computer graphics.
The NSF grant for this workshop provides funding for the participants that will cover hotel lodging and food (up to $40 per day) for the five day workshop. Participants will also receive materials that they may take back to their home institution. Trans portation to and from the workshop is the participants responsibility, as are any incidental charges (e.g., parking fees).
The Scientific Visualization workshops will be conducted in a similar fashion to the previous Computer Graphics workshops in that they will be a mixture of lecture, demonstration, and laboratory, which proved to be a successful format. The faculty will use both high end visualization systems, such as IRIS Explorer for UNIX Workstations, and lower end systems, such as Mathematica, MathCad, or MATlab, that run on PC's.
Participants who complete this workshop will have enough background to teach a course in Scientific Visualization or a section on Scientific Visualization incorporated in some other course, such as computer graphics or computational science.
The objective of the Scientific Visualization Workshop is to educate the teachers in the principles and applications of Scientific Visualization. A second objective is courseware development. The faculty participants will produce images and examples of Scientific Visualization techniques that they can use in their own courses. The workshops will extend for five days, Monday through Friday. Some of the formal lecture time will be reserved for curriculum and pedagogical discussions and these will be integrated into all of the lectures. Our previous experience with the Computer Graphics Workshops was that the pedagogical issues were very important, i.e., participants wanted to know not only the actual content but also the best way to teach a subject. For a new, somewhat unsettled area such as Scientific Visualization, it will be very useful to also discuss why something should be included.
1 Definitions and Goals of Visualization
For any visualization course it is important to discuss background, definitions, and goals in order to provide a common understanding of visualization.
We will discuss the following subtopics in the tutorial:
2 Abstract Visualization Concepts
It is necessary to establish a framework for the use of visualization. Participants should learn how to make use of concepts and paradigms, specifically of the ones they are not yet familiar with (e.g., paradigms from Fine Arts for Computer Science students). We will discuss the following subtopics in the tutorial:
3 Human Perception Concepts
This section will enhance the understanding of how to use graphics tools to support human perception in order to gain insight into phenomena that we seek to interpret. We will discuss the following subtopics in the tutorial:
4 Scientific Methods and Concepts
This theme explains the relationship between the 'real world' and the 'models' we have available in order to understand the real world and the 'empirical (data) measurements' we have of the real world. Non-science students have usually little approach to models, data concepts and reality. We will discuss the following subtopics in the tutorial:
5 Aspects of Data
Various aspects of data, such as acquisition, classification, storage and retrieval of data, will be discussed. Appropriate subtopics are
6 Visualization Techniques
This section provides tutorial participants with a wealth of ideas for visual representations and teaches them how to apply appropriate tools. We will discuss 2-d, 3-d and multi-dimensional visualization techniques, such as color transformations, glyphs for high dimensional data sets, visualization of gaseous and fluid information, volume rendering, isolines and isosurfaces, coloring, particle tracing, animation, techniques in virtual environments, and interactive steering.
7 Interaction Issues
Interaction techniques are fundamental to the design and use of visualization systems. We will discuss interaction from the view point of ergonometry, HCI and hardware techniques.
8 Existing Visualization Systems/Tools
Available visualization systems will be discussed.
9 Aesthetics in Visualization
The following subtopics will be discussed:
10 Related Topics
A visualization course might include fundamental aspects of mathematics and computer science. The presentation of appropriate subtopics depends on the objectives of the course and the background of the students. Appropriate subtopics may be: