He has just watched a video math puzzle and is trying to solve it. From his cogitation come color slides of his brain's interior, showing blood movement through the cortex. Not since the invention of printing has a communication tool attracted so much excitement as computer visualization. The visual affects virtually every human activity. Biology has its double helix, planetary astronomy its faded blue Apollo 10 Earth view, and protein chemistry its squid-like molecules.
Medicine uses visualization wherever doctors probe, diagnose, or operate.
Oncologists can see hidden tumors inside the brain, and surgeons can visualize the anatomical point to separate the joined heads of Siamese twins. Pharmaceutical researchers create molecular models of the AIDS virus and explore its response to potential therapies. Perhaps visualization's most far-reaching impact is in advertising, news production, and entertainment. The most recent expression of this trend is virtual reality, placing the observer in an environment of sights and sounds that mimic the real world and change with the participants' actions. Experts not often given to hype have called visualization an explosion of techniques unparalleled since Galileo invented the telescope or Janssen the microscope.