Basic Visualization Terminology

Visualization

- the graphical (as opposed to textual or verbal) communication of information (e.g. data, documents, structure)

Interaction

- a fundamental component to visualization which permits user-specified modifications to the visualization parameters

Data model

- representation of data, may include structure, attributes, relationships, behavior, and semantics as well as repository for data values themselves

Graphical attributes

- user-controllable aspects of the image generation process, including position, size, color, shape, orientation, speed, texture, and transparency of graphical entities

Mapping

- associating data values and attributes to graphical entities and attributes

Rendering

- creating and displaying an image

Field

- a grid of data points, may be uniform/nonuniform

Scalar

- a single numeric data value

Vector

- a 1-D list of values associated with a single datum

Tensor

- a 2-D array of values associated with a single datum

Isosurface

- contours or boundaries in a field with a common value, usually dependent on interpolating between values in the field

Glyph

- shape or image generated by mapping data components to graphical attributes, also called an icon