Visualization or visualisation (see spelling differences) is any technique for creating  images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message. Visualization through visual  imagery has been an effective way to communicate both abstract and concrete ideas since  the dawn of humanity. Examples from history include cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphs,  Greek geometry, and Leonardo da Vinci's revolutionary methods of technical drawing for  engineering and scientiﬁc purposes.

Visualization today has ever-expanding applications in science, education, engineering  (e.g., product visualization), interactive multimedia, medicine, etc. Typical of a visualization  application is the ﬁeld of computer graphics. The invention of computer graphics (and 3D  computer graphics) may be the most important development in visualization since the  invention of central perspective in the Renaissance period. The development of animation  also helped advance visualization.

Computer graphics has from its beginning been used to study scientiﬁc problems.  However, in its early days the lack of graphics power often limited its usefulness. The  recent emphasis on visualization started in 1987 with the publication of Visualization in  Scientiﬁc Computing, a special issue of Computer Graphics.[4] Since then, there have  been several conferences and workshops, co-sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society  and ACM SIGGRAPH, devoted to the general topic, and special areas in the ﬁeld, for  example volume visualization.

Most people are familiar with the digital animations produced to present meteorological  data during weather reports on television, though few can distinguish between those  models of reality and the satellite photos that are also shown on such programs. TV also  offers scientiﬁc visualizations when it shows computer drawn and animated reconstructions  of road or airplane accidents. Some of the most popular examples of scientiﬁc  visualizations are computer-generated images that show real spacecraft in action, out in  the void far beyond Earth, or on other planets.[citation needed] Dynamic forms of  visualization, such as educational animation or timelines, have the potential to enhance  learning about systems that change over time.

For the activity, I will divide the stakeholders into groups of 5-6 participants each  representing a different organization or area of interest. Each group receives a poster-size  copy of the straw man  graphic that they can write on directly, or use sticky notes to make comments. I give them  two-three questions to answer, such as: 1) What key elements are missing from the  graphic? 2) What would you  change about the graphic to make it more accurately reﬂect your problem space? 3) What  key insights do you have about the relationships between the entities in your problem  space? I give them approximately 20 minutes to discuss the questions and mark up the  graphic. Then I have each group report out on their answers to those three questions while  pointing to the mark-ups on their poster. As each group reports out, I record commonalities  in the insights of each group, and then additional  insightsthatcomefromthegroupdiscussiononanadditionalcopyofthegraphic. Afterthesession,I  digitize each group’s poster as an artifact, create a view that combines the shared and new  insights from the group discussion, and then create a revised graphic that incorporates  their feedback

ht & Approach What I have learned from conducting this exercise with several groups is that while the  graphic – especially the revised graphic that incorporates their feedback – is important for  reinforcing their  understanding of the problem they are working to solve, the more valuable aspect of the  activity is the shared insights and shared learning that occurs while they are working to  deﬁne their problem  space. The graphic gives the diverse group of stakeholders a focal point for discussion  that allows them to share their perspectives and develop insights into potential root causes  of their problems. While they could create the graphic from a blank slate in a collaborative  manner, starting with a straw man jump starts the conversation for them.

Visualization

