This is one book that can genuinely be said to be straight from the horse’s mouth. Written by the originator of the technique, it examines parallel coordinates as the leading methodology for multidimensional visualization. Starting from geometric foundations, this is the first systematic and rigorous exposition of the methodology's mathematical and algorithmic components. It covers, among many others, the visualization of multidimensional lines, minimum distances, planes, hyperplanes, and clusters of "near" planes. The last chapter explains in a non-technical way the methodology's application to visual and automatic data mining. The principles of the latter, along with guidelines, strategies and algorithms are illustrated in detail on real high-dimensional datasets.

A year has passed since Eshel Bresler, my good friend and colleague, and a member of the editorial board of the Advanced Series in Agricultural Sciences, died suddenly while on a visit to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. We had worked together for almost 30 years at the Institute of Soils and Water, ARO, The Volcani Center at Bet Dagan. At the very beginning of our scientific careers we cooperated directly and as a result one of our first publications was coauthored (Soil Sci. 101:205-209, 1966). Thereafter, our specific research interests diver sified, but we continued to work together, with similar approaches to research, and to strive towards the development of Israel soil science and its integration into general worldwide scientific progress. I don't need to emphasize Eshel's contribution to the understan ding of the processes governing water flow and solute transport pro cesses in soils and unsaturated zones. The contributions to this Volume by such a body of outstanding scientists shows the apprecia tion of the international scientific community to his research achievements.

Many hardware devices present either results or alternatives selected by computers to users. A few are video display terminals (VDTs), touch-tone telephones, and computer-generated speech systems. In part this book con cerns the impact and implications of such tools. Alternatively this is an attempt to provide material for researchers, students, and managers con cerned with computer interfaces. The subject of computer interfaces is at one level a technical subarea sharing common interests with the broad dis ciplines of computer science, psychology, and bioengineering. However, it is also a topic thrust to the forefront of interest of a wide variety of individuals who confront one of the most striking technological changes that has occurred in human history-the introduction of contact with computing devices as an essential component of many kinds of ordinary transactions. Point of entry sales, travel and entertainment reservations, and library infor mation, are commonly conducted today by interaction with digital calculat ing devices that did not exist in the recent past. The papers in this book present several concerns arising from the widespread use of computing. One involves the future implications of further advances of this technology. This is a twofold issue: (a) the potential conse quences of changing the basic way that information is managed in areas ranging from design, engineering, and management/planning to information access, education, and clerical function; and (b) improvements that could be instituted from further development of the special characteristics of display techniques, technologies, and algorithms.

This book arose out of an invited feature article on visualization and opti mization that appeared in the ORSA Journal on Computing in 1994. That article briefly surveyed the current state of the art in visualization as it ap plied to optimization. In writing the feature article, it became clear that there was much more to say. Apparently others agreed, and thus this book was born. The book is targeted primarily towards the optimization community rather than the visualization community. Although both optimization and visualization both seek to help people understand complex problems, prac titioners in one field are generally unaware of work in the other field. Given the common goals of the respective fields, it seemed fruitful to consider how each can contribute to the other. One might argue that this book should not be focused specifically on optimization but on decision making in general. Perhaps, but it seems that there is sufficient material to create a book targeted specifically to optimization. Certainly many of the ideas presented in the book are appli cable to other areas, including computer simulation, decision theory and stochastic modeling. Another book could discuss the use of visualization in these areas.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Scalable Interactive Visualization" that was published in Informatics

This book is the outcome of the Dagstuhl Seminar on "Information Visualization -- Human-Centered Issues in Visual Representation, Interaction, and Evaluation" held at Dagstuhl Castle, Germany, from May 28 to June 1, 2007. Information Visualization (InfoVis) is a relatively new research area, which focuses on the use of visualization techniques to help people understand and analyze data. This book documents and extends the findings and discussions of the various sessions in detail. The seven contributions cover the most important topics: There are general reflections on the value of information visualization; evaluating information visualizations; theoretical foundations of information visualization; teaching information visualization. And specific aspects on creation and collaboration: engaging new audiences for information visualization; process and pitfalls in writing information visualization research papers; and visual analytics: definition, process, and challenges.

II Challenges in Data Mapping Part II deals with one of the most challenging tasks in Interactive Visualization, mapping and teasing out information from large complex datasets and generating visual representations. This section consists of four chapters. Binh Pham, Alex Streit, and Ross Brown provide a comprehensive requirement analysis of information uncertainty visualizations. They examine the sources of uncertainty, review aspects of its complexity, introduce typical models of uncertainty, and analyze major issues in visualization of uncertainty, from various user and task perspectives. Alfred Inselberg examines challenges in the multivariate data analysis. He explains how relations among multiple variables can be mapped uniquely into ?-space subsets having geometrical properties and introduces Parallel Coordinates meth- ology for the unambiguous visualization and exploration of a multidimensional geometry and multivariate relations. Christiaan Gribble describes two alternative approaches to interactive particle visualization: one targeting desktop systems equipped with programmable graphics hardware and the other targeting moderately sized multicore systems using pack- based ray tracing. Finally, Christof Rezk Salama reviews state-of-the-art strategies for the assignment of visual parameters in scientific visualization systems. He explains the process of mapping abstract data values into visual based on transfer functions, clarifies the terms of pre- and postclassification, and introduces the state-of-the-art user int- faces for the design of transfer functions.