CS 530 - Introduction to Scientific Visualization

Fall 2008
Image credits: Y. Livnat (http://www.sci.utah.edu/~yarden), C. Garth (http://www-hagen.informatik.uni-kl.de/~garth/), S. Parker (http://i.sci.utah.edu/sparker), G.-S. Li (http://www.sci.utah.edu/~lig), S. Zhang (http://www.cse.msstate.edu/~szhang/brain.htm), X. Tricoche (http://www.cs.purdue.edu/~xmt)

Important Information

Instructor: Prof. Xavier Tricoche
Office: LWSN 3154P
E-mail: xmt@purdue.edu
Phone: 496-9416
Hours: Thursdays 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
TA: Tion Thomas (tathomas@purdue.edu)

Time: T, H 9:00-10:20 a.m.
Location: LWSN B134

 

Textbooks

  • The Visualization Toolkit User's Guide, Kitware Inc., ISBN 1-930934-0804 [required]
  • The Visualization Toolkit - An Object-Oriented Approach to 3D Graphic (3rd ed.), Will Schroeder, Ken Martin, Bill Lorensen, ISBN 1-930934-07-6 [optional]
  • Visualization Handbook, C.D. Hansen, C.R. Johnson eds., Elsevier, 2005, ISBN: 0-12-387582-X [optional]

 

Course Philosophy

Scientific Visualization transforms numerical data sets obtained through measurements or computations into graphical representations. Interactive visualization systems allow scientists, engineers, and biomedical researchers to explore and analyze a variety of phenomena in an intuitive and effective way. The course provides an introduction to the principles and techniques of Scientific Visualization. It covers methods corresponding to the visualization of scalar, vector, and tensor fields, as well as higher-dimensional multi-field problems. It combines a description of visualization algorithms with a presentation of their practical application. Basic notions of computer graphics and human visual perception are briefly reviewed at the beginning of the semester for completeness.

 

Prerequisites

CS 334 and 381, or consent of the instructor. CS 251 is recommended.
(do not hesitate to ask if you are interested!)

 

Syllabus

Software

The projects will involve implementation tasks based on the Visualization Toolkit. VTK is an open source software providing a versatile visualization infrastructure that can be manipulated using scripting languages. While Tcl/Tk will be the preferred language, Python and Java will be available as well. The VTK installation contains a tutorial and a number of examples that constitute a nice introduction for beginners.


Class slides

The slides shown in class are available here.