Tufte, Minard and scientific visualization (was: Re: Webpage of the month award should go to Anders)

From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Fri Aug 09 2002 - 13:28:39 MDT


Anders:
>Yes, Tufte is worth a shrine. His books are *beautiful* and contain a
>treasure trove of wonderful ideas for visualisations. He has been a
>great source of inspiration for me.

Cool...more Tufte fans!

About scientific visualization and Edward Tufte.

I attended an all-day seminar from Edward Tufte about ten years ago, and
I never looked at data and information in the same way afterwards. He's
great.

A person who worked some years ago at NASA-Ames (maybe still?),
Al Globus, has written up some words following the guidelines of Edward
Tufte, in a humorous and satirical way (Globus told me that Tufte was
a hero of his too).

http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Research/Reports/Techreports/1992/rnr-92-006-abstract.html

"13 Ways to Say Nothing with Scientific Visualization"

"Scientific visualization can be used to produce very beautiful
images. Frequently users and others not properly initiated into the
mysteries of visualization research fail to appreciate the artistic
qualities of these images. Scientists will frequently use our work to
needlessly understand the data from which it is derived. This paper
describes a a number of effective techniques to confound such
pernicious activity."

Globus added 'another way' in his IEEE Computer article, which has
become a classic.

A. Globus, E. Raible, "Fourteen Ways to Say Nothing with Scientific
Visualization," IEEE Computer, vol. 27, no. 7 (July 1994), pp 86-88.

Here is a 'gems of scientific visualization' meta page:

http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/historical.html

And finally,

Do you remember Charles Minard's map showing the size of Napoleon's army
(with dates), and the retreat, together with the decline of temperature
that Tufte features in his first book (and he uses in his course) ?

http://www.napoleonic-literature.com/1812/1812-t.htm

The closeup view where you can read the details on Minard's map is here:

http://www.napoleonic-literature.com/1812/1812.htm

Here is another Web page expanding on that famous Minard map:

"Re-Visions of Minard" by Michael Friendly

http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/re-minard.html

-- 
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Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara@amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
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"I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading
labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in
some way involve the stars."  - Jorge Luis Borges


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