Summary
The use of graphics toolkits to visualise and understand numerical data is explored with reference to (a) a common data format for 3D geometry and (b) the improvement of visualisation algorithms through the incorporation of numerical library software.
Using a common 3D format allows scenes and objects to be shared between applications and—if desired—published on the World-Wide Web (WWW) for viewing by co-workers elsewhere. Two examples of this are given. In one, we outline how the adoption of a standard toolkit to provide the visualisation component of a computer algebra package has cut down on development time and has provided it with the ability to share 3D data with other applications. In the other, we show how a graphics toolkit can be used within a visualisation web server, where its output can be transmitted across the WWW by means of the 3D format.
The use of library software can save the application developer time and effort in implementing fundamental algorithms, and allows them to concentrate on other aspects of the visualisation process. We describe some preliminary work on visualisation benchmarking, and show how some library routines are superior to simpler, but less sophisticated algorithms in the context of particle tracing.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
R.A. Earnshaw and D. Watson, Eds., Animation and Scientific Visualization-Tools and Applications,Academic Press (1993).
J. Nieder, T. Davis, and M. Woo, OpenGL Programming Guide. The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Release 1, Addison Wesley (1993).
J. Wernecke, The Inventor Mentor. Programming Object-Oriented Graphics with Open Inventor, Release 2, Addison Wesley (1994).
The Numerical Algorithms Group, IRIS Explorer User’s Guide (1995).
http://www.wired.com/vrml.
http://www.sgi.com/WebFORCE/WebSpace
http://www.sd.tgs.com/template
C. Upson, T. Faulhaber Jr., D. Kamins, D. Laidlaw, D. Schlegel, J. Vroom, R. Gurwitz, and A. Van Dam, The Application Visualisation System: A Computational Environment for Scientific Visualisation, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 9 (1989), 30.
B. Lucas, G.D. Abram, N.S. Collins, D.A. Epstein, D.L. Gresh, and K.P. Mcauliffe, An Architecture for a Scientific Visualisation System,Proceedings of Visualisation ’82, IEEE Computer Society Press (1992), 107.
J. Rasure, and M. Young, An Open Environment for Image Processing Software Development, Proceedings of 1992 SPIEIS&T Symposium on Electronic Imaging (1992), 1659.
J. Walton, Now You See It—Interactive Visualisation of Large Datasets, Applications of Supercomputers in Engineering III, Computational Mechanics Publications/Elsevier Applied Science (1993), 139.
H. Rushmeier, M. Botts, S. Uselton, J. Walton, H. Watkins, and D. Watson, Metrics and Benchmarks for Visualization, Proceedings of Visualisation ’85, IEEE Computer Society Press (1995), 422.
J. Walton, Visualisation Benchmarking: A Practical Application of 3D Publishing, Proceedings of 14th Annual Eurographics UK Conf. (1996), in press.
R.D. Jenks and R.S. Sutor, AXIOM: The Scientific Computation System,Springer-Verlag and NAG Ltd (1992).
J. Wood, IRIS Explorer, VRML and the WWW, poster presentation at the IRIS Explorer User Group meeting, SIGGRAPH 95, (1995).
Wood, J., K.W. Brodlie, and H. Wright, Visualisation and the World Wide Web, personal communucation (1995).
W.H. Press, B.P. Flannery, S.A. Teukolsky, and W.T. Vettering, Numerical Recipes, Cambridge University Press (1986), 547.
D.N. Kenwright and D.A. Lane, Optimisation of Time-dependent Particle Tracing using Tetrahedral Decomposition, Proceedings of Visualisation ’85, IEEE Computer Society Press (1995), 321.
R.W. Brankin, I. Gladwell, and L.F. Shampine, RKSUITE: a suite of Runge-Kutta codes for the initial value problem for ODEs. SoftReport 91-S1, Department of Mathematics, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275, U.S.A. (1991).
The Numerical Algorithms Group, C Library Documentation, (1995).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Walton, J., Dewar, M. (1997). See what I mean? Using Graphics Toolkits to Visualise Numerical Data. In: Hege, HC., Polthier, K. (eds) Visualization and Mathematics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59195-2_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59195-2_19
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-63891-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-59195-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive