Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
analogy. Through creating symbols, meaning can
be conveyed and expressed by means of images.
Graphs, diagrams, and animations can visualize
messages as well. As productive thinking in what-
ever area of cognition takes place in the realm of
imagery, visual perception should be considered
a cognitive activity. In his structure of intellect
model, Joy Paul Guilford (1968) designated a
single factor as the cognition of visual figural
systems. Visualization has also been considered
a semiotic process because of the use of signs to
present ideas. One may say visualization meant
in traditional terms the intuitive use of a visual
presentation of a concept; one of the most often
cited examples is August Kekulé's vision of danc-
ing atoms and molecules telling about a structure
of benzene. In general non-technological terms,
visualization means a mental image that is similar
to a visual perception. It is also the technique of
creating a mental image of a desired outcome,
and repeatedly playing that image in the mind. It
is sometimes used in conjunction with medical
treatment, including cancer treatment.
There are several approaches to the concept
of visualization and the ways it mediates between
the user and the physical world. Data is seen as an
essential abstract concept from which further levels
can be derived: information, and then knowledge.
The most important domains in visualization can
be seen as data visualization, information visual-
ization, and knowledge visualization. Scientific
visualization is another approach to visualiza-
tion, where physically based data are selected,
transformed, and represented according to space
coordinates, for example, visualizing computer to-
mography data for medical use. In broadcast media,
visualization techniques are often used to explain
a process that is important for action development;
for example, in an American television medical
drama House, M.D. dynamic visualizations show
the interior of human organism.
Information is usually presented in numerical,
graphic, or diagrammatic form. When expressed
as visualization, information may be shown as a
sketch, drawing, diagram, plan, outline, image,
geometric relationship, map, music and dance
notation, object, interactive installation, or a story.
Diagrams visualize information in a pictorial yet
abstract (rather than illustrative) way, as plots, line
graphs and charts, or the engineers' or architects'
blueprints. Big and complicated presentations of
data organization and interpretation, for example
governmental statistics, are easier to comprehend
in a graphic than in a numerical form, when they
serve as explanatory tools for the data sets. Data
provide us a raw material that has no meaning if
we do not process it, so it becomes useful for our
own purpose. We may find online visual presen-
tations, for example “The crisis of credit cards
visualized” (www.crisisofcredit.com) created by
Jonathan Jarvis or “Wind map” (file://localhost/
Users/ursyn/Desktop/Wind%20Map.html), a per-
sonal art project interactively showing the actual
tracery of winds.
Graphic presentation shows how something
works or explains the relationship between the
parts of a whole. However, surfing the web, data
mining, and manipulating the data are easier when
the data is shown with the use of information vi-
sualization and interactive techniques, with more
dimensions in a presentation. Data-, information-,
and knowledge-visualization have been present in
different disciplines and in various modes since
early days of civilization. Visualizations of many
kinds are powerful cognitive tools useful in our
everyday life; they take their form from several
domains, and so there are no defined boundaries
between the different disciplines of visualization.
Essential terms: data, information, and
knowledge may need some consideration before
discussing the data-, information-, and knowledge
visualization issues.