Background A group of UKexperts on Scientific Visualization and its associated applications gathered at The Cosener's House in Abingdon, Oxford shire (UK) in February 1991 to consider all aspects of scientific visualization and to produce a number of documents: * a detailed summary of current knowledge, techniques and appli cations in the field (this book); * an Introductory Guide to Visualization that could be widely dis tributed to the UK academic community as an encouragement to use visualization techniques and tools in their work; * a Management Report (to the UK Advisory Group On Computer Graphics - AGOCG) documenting the principal results of the workshop and making recommendations as appropriate. This book proposes a framework through which scientific visualiza tion systems may be understood and their capabilities described. It then provides overviews of the techniques, data facilities and human-computer interface that are required in a scientific visualiza tion system. The ways in which scientific visualization has been applied to a wide range of applications is reviewed and the available products that are scientific visualization systems or contribute to sci entific visualization systems are described. The book is completed by a comprehensive bibliography of literature relevant to scientific visualization and a glossary of terms. VI Scientific Visualization Acknowledgements This book was predominantly written during the workshop in Abingdon. The participants started from an "input document" pro duced by Ken Brodlie, Lesley Ann Carpenter, Rae Earnshaw, Julian Gallop (with Janet Haswell), Chris Osland and Peter Quarendon.

Algorithms provide the basic foundation for all computational processes. This volume presents algorithms at the foundational level and also at the various levels between this level and the user application. Some of these algorithms are classical and have become well established in the field. This material is therefore a rich source of information and is still relevant and up to date. The basic primitives of computer graphics have remained unchanged: lines, circles, conics, curves and characters. This volume contains reference material in all these areas. The higher levelsof contouring and surface drawing are also well covered. Developments in hardware architectures have continued since the first printing, but the basic principles of hardware/software trade-offs remain valid. This reprint is being published as a Study Edition to make the material more accessible to students and researchers in the field of computer graphics andits applications. The continuing popularity of the original book demonstrates the value and timeliness of its contents.