Abstract We present a unifying view of visualization in which comprehensive support for software, algorithm, process and application (including scientific) visualizations is treated as an essential component of the computing environment. We describe our recent work toward making this view a reality: a tool for computer‐assisted design of visualizations and a technique for monitoring a computational process in a non‐invasive fashion.

Programs for massively parallel SIMD computers are difficult to write, understand, and debug -much more so than serial programs running on a conven­ tional computer. The barriers to understanding and debugging SIMD programs may be lowered by graph­ ically visualizing these programs as they execute. This paper describes a conceptual framework for monitoring the execution of SIMD programs in a non­ invasive fashion, and characterizes the user-interaction paradigm of a novel computer-aided design system for creating new visualizations. These ideas, and the im­ portance of visualization for SIMD programming and debugging, are illustrated in an actual debugging sce­ nario that was recorded during the use of the Inte­ grated Visualization Environment (IVE), a prototype system being developed at Harvard University and the Lockheed Palo Alto Research Labs., Advanced Com­ putation Lab.

Partial automation of the task of designing graphical displays that effectively depict the data to be visualized through cooperative computer-aided design (CCAD) is described. This paradigm combines the strengths of manual and automated design by interspersing guiding design operations by the human user with the exploration of design alternatives by the computer. The approach is demonstrated in the context of the IVE design system, a CCAD environment for the design of scientific visualizations using a set of design rules that combine primitive visualization components in different ways. These alternatives are presented graphically to the user, who can browse through them, select the most promising visualization, and refine it manually.>

No abstract available.

We describe a new theory of scene modelling that includes generative processes as integral components of scene descriptions. A single, uniform treatment of generative processes replaces the variety of ad hoc mechanisms commonly in use. We discuss the implementation of the theory in an experimental modelling system and show that L-systems, fractals, and particle systems, as well as many specialized generative processes, become comparatively easy to define and use.

A technique is presented for automatically synthesizing graphical object descriptions from high-level specifications. The technique includes mechanisms for describing, selecting, and combining primitive elements of object descriptions. Underlying these mechanisms are a referential framework for describing information used in the construction of object descriptions and a computational model of the object-synthesis process.

We begin by reviewing spatial data management—the technique of accessing and organizing information via its graphical representation in an organized spatial framework.

Spatial Data Management is a technique for organizing and retrieving information by positioning it in a spatial framework. Data is accessed in a Spatial Data Management System (SDMS) via pictorial representations which are arranged in space and viewed through a computer graphics system. These pictures can be created by an interactive graphical editor, allowing an SDMS to serve as a personal repository of diagrams, text, and photographs. Pictograms can also be generated from data in a symbolic database management system, allowing SDMS to be used as an interface to large, shared databases.