Image Processing Reference
In-Depth Information
very large and complex—scientific data on a wide range of devices. Such a list of
devices does include the omnipresent PC workstation but it also extends to very
small displays such as pads, tablet PCs, and smart-phones it also includes large scale
visualization installations such as high-resolution front and back-projection systems,
LCD display assemblies and the various virtual reality setups such as CAVEs [ 13 ]
and similar immersive environments.
In the context of this chapter the perfect visualization system would be the one
that runs perfectly on (or scales to) the entire range of displays imaginable from
the smallest wristwatch display to the biggest terrapixel screen. As—to our best
knowledge—something like that does not exist yet, we will first focus on works
that primarily deal with the very small displays and then take a look at large scale
visualization environments. Finally, we conclude with an outlook over current and
future work in this area.
29.2 Small Devices
In this section, we will focus on the small, the portable, the mobile, the hand-held, the
low power consumption hardware. Many names for a class of display and computing
resources that—if we believe the predictions of the analysts—may soon almost com-
pletely replace the PCs fromour homes and even workplaces. Before we begin to take
a look at existing works that utilize this type of hardware let us reflect why we want
to use these devices for visualization. First of all, there are a couple of good reasons
not to use them. They are small by definition, which in most cases means they have
a small screen. 1 Another good reason to avoid them for visualization purposes is the
lack of traditional input metaphors such as mouse and keyboard which are replaced
by a number of sensors and input modalities that we do not have access to on a
standard PC. Finally, there is no doubt that the graphics and computing resources on
mobile devices are limited even in comparison to commodity PC based workstations,
not to mention computing clusters that are often employed for visualization.
On the positive side, we have the low power consumption, which is certainly
interesting for some first responder, disaster or remote location scenarios were no
reliable power infrastructure is present, but often power is not a concern. Being
portable, mobile, hand-held appears to be a much more interesting feature. There
are quite a few scenarios where we would have access to a power outlet, wired, and
wireless Internet but where a workstation, a notebook, or a netbook are impractical.
Examples include a doctor on a ward round, mobile medical units, scientists in the
field, ad-hoc brainstorming sessions on a lunch break, or simply the only specialist to
a problem who just happens to be on vacation skiing in the mountains. Most of these
examples are based on yet another argument, that is: the best visualization platform is
1 At this point, we knowingly ignore those devices that come with a projector and use arbitrary
objects as projection surfaces, as to our best knowledge these designs are still in early prototype
state.
 
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