Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!cgl.ucsf.edu!rl
From: rl@cgl.ucsf.edu (Robert Langridge%CGL)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Scientific visualization
Message-ID: <11070@cgl.ucsf.EDU>
Date: 2 Aug 88 23:32:46 GMT
Sender: daemon@cgl.ucsf.edu
Reply-To: rl@cgl.ucsf.edu (Robert Langridge)
Organization: UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
Lines: 38
References:

In article <1201@eos.UUCP> eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes:

 [...comments on scientific visualization and criticism of
 overemphasis on "realism"...]

>Bob (Langridge) I know you read this, comments?

OK Gene:

This is the closing paragraph of an abstract I wrote for the
upcoming Molecular Graphics Society 7th Annual Meeting (and the
first to be held in the US - at the Cathedral Hill Hotel, San
Francisco, 10-13 August 1988).  I can post the rest of my abstract
and more information on the meeting if anyone is interested.

				         "...computer graphics is
now  an  essential  tool,  but  the  rapid  decrease  in cost and
increase in power of commercial workstations suggests emphasis on
the *integration* of graphics with numeric and symbolic computing
and with large databases.  Molecular modelers should  treat  com-
puter  graphics as a means of interacting with their computations
to generate insight and to aid in reasoning, and not  be  seduced
by  the  heavy  emphasis  on  "realism"  in the computer graphics
field.  If real-time images can be generated which correspond  to
the  investigators  model  of  "reality" they should be used, but
"reality" is not a necessary property of  images  for  successful
scientific  visualization.   Their most important property is the
information they convey."

I have spent a lot of time and effort over the last 25 years trying
to persuade my colleagues in molecular biology that graphics is a 
useful tool.  Now I risk being labeled a reactionary!


Bob Langridge			   			     rl@cgl.ucsf.edu
Computer Graphics Laboratory		           
University of California		   
San Francisco  CA  94143-0446		       +1 415 476-2630, -1540, -5128