Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!jarthur!nntp-server.caltech.edu!mustang!data.nas.nasa.gov!wilbur.nas.nasa.gov!eugene
From: eugene@nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.visualization
Subject: Re: Out of the lab, into the classroom
Keywords: reuse fabulous
Message-ID: <1991Apr5.081522.13625@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 5 Apr 91 08:15:22 GMT
References: <18226@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <1991Apr4.195401.22442@eagle.lerc. <18252@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <1991Apr4.232859.14624@agate.berkeley.edu>
Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov
Reply-To: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Organization: NAS Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Lines: 64

In article <1991Apr4.232859.14624@agate.berkeley.edu>
andyr@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu (Andy Rose) writes:
>Perhaps the essence of my origianl question is expressed here in the
>analogy between a statistician and a visualizer.

Yes, but again, most scientists don't hire stat people for their work.
I did kind of like the optometist analogy.  I'll think about it more.
Note: I only recently got glasses for the first time in my life.
To quote mine which taking tests: "Confused? You are supposed to be.
Helps refine the measurement...."

>I suggest that there are as many ways to visualize data as there are
>brains wanting to.  I also suggest that some methods of vis are more
>efficacious than others (i.e. stero glasses for amorphous blobs).
>But perhaps this is all common sense, just as it seems piecing together
>a readable paragraph is common sense.

I am open to your first statement, especially since we have blind scientists
here, but we have dataset here of fluid flow with such blobs and no one
can understand what's going on.  Turbulence is a major topic of study and
non-trivial.  Don't trust common sense.  Common sense isn't so common.

>I think that if you want to talk to the common man you must speak his
>language

Again if the scientist doesn't understand, then the common man won't either.

>Perception psych(?) or perhaps such 'soft science' is not acceptable
>to the hard sciences as an area even worth studying.  There are other
>areas, like art history and graphic design, which scientists sometimes
>do not appreciate.  I think some communications theory is also helpful.

I nearly married into a family of artists (4 generations).  Nothing
wrong with art for art's sake, BUT scientists would tend to like to have some
real consistency when trying to solve problems (applications).
James Burke pointed that art is largely "one man's interpretations
made third hand,... and they tell you more about the man observing than
the thing observed."  I'll get the exact quote if you need it.
Art and science are similar in many ways, but if you have a science problem
and get two artists with two different suggestions to solve a rendering
problem, you don't have time to sort things out.  Cognitive science people
tend to be a bit more consistent, but we get battles here.  If you want
to read part of the argument read Edward Feigenbaum's Fifth Generation
Computers (about 1982) wherein Feigenbaum notes physicists are the "Polo
players of science."

>My experience as a staffperson in Dept. Visualization at Cornell Theory
>Center was there are many ways to represent data and that some were
>better than others and that I knew which because of experience.  
>
>Perhaps some gentle reader who has visualized projects from differing
>sciences could chime in.

True many ways to represent data.  I've looked at Kiviat Diagrams,
Chernoff Faces, 2 and 3-D surfaces, objects, volumes, and
lots of stereo.  You want gentle?
Personal experience is like introspection: limited value.
But mathematical notation is without question the most powerful.

"Science is not pretty...." -- from a comedy routine

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene