Visualization

Visualization by Jim Blinn is the basis (along with the works of Edward Tufte) for my idea of what visualisation is. I've often used the following quote verbatim in presentations (to the dismay of my supervisors, and audiences no doubt):

"Visualization is good. Visualization is valuable. Let's have more visualization.
THE MEANING OF VISUALIZATION
That's great, but what does visualization really mean? In the past I have always thought of visualization as primarily a mental process: you receive some knowledge (from any of various sources) and, when you understand it thoroughly, you can "create a picture of it" in your mind. Nowadays computer graphicists are trying to place this picture more directly in the mind by creating the pictures with a computer. (This, of course, has been done for some time using more conventional illustration media). The term "visualization" has come to be a proper noun referring to the actual picture or computer image itself, as in the phrase "I created a visualization of the process on the screen". Even though the visualization is on a piece of paper or a computer screen, the ultimate destination is the mind."

He then goes on to talk about "impossible visualizations", "dangerous visualizations", "designing good visualizations" and "the usefulness of visualization". The article is short and sweet, but is full of the kind of wisdom you'd expect from the author of a regular column in the IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications journal -- Jim Blinn's Corner. Another article of Blinn's, The Ancient Chinese Art of Chi-Ting ("cheating"), about graphical tricks and techniques, has an absolute gem of wisdom that has stayed with me: a "technique" is a "trick" that you use more than once.