Abstract
VISUALIZATION OF COMPUTER SIMULATIONS of complex physical, biological, and sociological systems has become indispensable for computational scientists and engineers, providing insights and potential breakthroughs that would otherwise be unlikely. Scientific visualization is therefore one of the fastest growing and most important areas of high-performance computing, allowing researchers to supplement traditional routes of scientific discovery. It is also a creative alternative to supplement experimentation in the science and engineering labs and lectures of colleges and universities nationwide. In this paper, we argue that scientific visualization is not only indispensable for a researcher’s better understanding of a phenomenon, but that it is also a necessary tool with which to present interesting and complex material to undergraduate and graduate science students in a meaningful and understandable way. Educating students in the methods and techniques associated with scientific visualization is a means to accelerate the pace of comprehension and discovery.
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Bruce Land is the Project Leader of the visualization group at the Cornell Theory Center. The group deals with development of visualization techniques and their application to scientific data. Land received his Ph.D. in neurobiology in 1976 from Cornell University, and a B.S. in physics from Harvey Mudd College in 1968. He was a lecturer in the Neurobiology Department at Cornell for 10 years and did research on coupling of activity at the vertebrate neuromuscular junction, both experimentally and by computer modeling. During this time, he taught in the Electrical Engineering department at Cornell for two years and consulted for several other groups. He came to the Cornell Theory Center in 1986 as a Computational Research Associate and started supporting graphics and animation in 1987. In 1992 he taught a senior level graphics course in the Computer Science department at Cornell.
Allison LoPerfido is the Staff Writer and Editor in external relations at the Cornell Theory Center. She coordinates the Center’s computational research newsletter and other publications. LoPerfido is completing her graduate research in communication at Cornell University, focusing on the effects of electronic mail on communication flow and social networks in one university department. She received her B.A. in English /Writing in 1987 from Nazareth College of Rochester and was a news and features reporter on issues related to education for two western New York newspapers. In 1992 she presented a paper on participatory development communication at the 18th Conference of the International Association for Mass Communication Research, San Paulo, Brazil.
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Land, B., LoPerfido, A. A case for scientific visualization in undergraduate and graduate classrooms. J. Comput. High. Educ. 4, 3–11 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02941062
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02941062