Data Visualization, 2nd Edition

Chapter 2

From Graphics to Visualization

FOR many readers of this book, data visualization is probably a new subject. In contrast, computer-graphics techniques, or at least the term “computer graphics,” should be familiar to most readers. In both visualization and graphics applications, we take as input some data and, ultimately, produce a picture that reflects several aspects of the input data. Given these (and other) similarities, a natural question arises: What are the differences between visualization and computer graphics? We shall answer this question in detail in Chapter 4. For the time being, it is probably easier to focus on the similarities between visualization and computer graphics. This will help us answer the following question: ...