Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ames!amelia!wilbur.nas.nasa.gov!eugene From: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) Newsgroups: comp.graphics Subject: Scientific visualization, philosophic question Keywords: productivity, Message-ID: <6719@amelia.nas.nasa.gov> Date: 14 Jun 90 20:14:36 GMT Sender: news@amelia.nas.nasa.gov Reply-To: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Lines: 63 A meeting was just held here at Ames on the topic of scientific visualization, where it's going, etc. There was a lot of discussion about the hype aspects, is it just a solution looking for a problem? how to get real work, etc. The visualization mailing list was brought, up, and so forth. I have a retorical question, may not be a good one, but science asks questions, re-poses problems and creates new models. See if and how you answer it. You can mail (I will gather and repost), or post yourself. Many examples (analogies) were given at the meeting (I was only able to attend part of the last day) and I draw upon them. The question concerns one of those Back-to-the Future what-If questions where I am fortunate to have a bit of additional information. The question concerns one of the most important scientific discoveries and one of the best documented discoveries in recent years. The question concerns to discovery of the structure of DNA. There are several well known books on this, a film, and many of the major participcants are still alive. If one would have sent a modern graphics workstation (with documentation and full color), back in time to 1952, would there have been signficantly different change (new discovery, etc.) in the way Watson and Crick would have uncovered the structure of DNA? Would they have gained further insight? No modern biosoftware, of course. Note: I didn't cross post this to sci.biology. That would be cheating. The question is directed to graphics people. The bio people should sit back and watch. Note: imagery played an important role, the work was done using X-ray crystallographic pictures. [Part of the idea came to me because of a comment in one meeting about radiology]. Remember this part of the relucance to use color in this field. Too many unimportant details. Note 2: W&C spent a lot of time manipulating ball and stick models. Would they have gained the insight from a 2-D screen as they did with their 3-D models? Note: I know that this type of pattern matching is over an order of magnitude harder than string pattern matching, I've a reference from the human genome project. Is the interaction from mice/dials sufficient or were W&C using solid balls and sticks important to their final discovery? I bring this up because I have solid models sitting on my workstation and no 3-D rendering will replace them: not stereo, nothing. Will visualization get get as far because it doesn't produce hardcopy output like Alpha1 hardcopy? Also note: would one of those "Reniassance" teams as proposed with programmers, artists, etc. be necessary to have had the two of them make their discovery? [I'm skpetical, but don't let me stop you from posting.] Okay you can send the team back in time with your box if you must, just no memory of the bio-future. 8) Since the BA/ACM/SIGGRAPH TIGSV meeting was brought up, I should note that for those who were there, Peter Ray was at the Cavandish when W&C did their work. Calling Peter is also off limits. Would Watson and Crick have learned more, faster using a workstation than their simple ball and stick models? Why? How? --e. nobuo miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene Should I offer prize money for the best answer?