Visualization is nowadays indispensable to get insight into the huge amounts of data pro duced by large scale simulations or advanced measurement devices. The use of com puter graphics for scientific purposes has become a well established discipline, known as Scientific Visualization. Many problems still have to be solved, and hence the field is a very active area for research and development. This book represents results of the sixth in a well established series of international workshops on Visualization in Scien tific Computing organized by the EUROGRAPHICS Association in collaboration with CRS4 (Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia), held from May 3 to May 5,1995, in Chia, Italy. The thirteen contributions selected for this volume cover a wide range of topics, ranging from detailed algorithmic studies to searches for new metaphors. A rough di vision can be made into the parts interaction, irregular meshes, volume rendering, and applications. Interaction in three dimensions is a challenging area for research. The use of three dimensional user interfaces for more natural manipulation of three-dimensional data and their visualization is natural, but is far from trivial to realize. Pang et al. investigate the use of common objects such as spray cans and carving knives as metaphors for visualiza tion tools, in order to provide an intuitive and natural three dimensional user interface. Gibson uses a voxel-based data representation, not only for visualization, but also for physical modeling of objects. A prototype system under development for haptic explo ration is discussed.

Visualization is now recognized as a powerful approach to get insight in large datasets produced by scientific experimentations and simulations. The contributions to this book cover technical aspects as well as concrete applications of visualization in various domains such as finance, physics, astronomy and medicine, providing researchers and engineers with valuable information for setting up new powerful environments.

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Visualization in scientific computing is getting more and more attention from many people. Especially in relation with the fast increase of com puting power, graphic tools are required in many cases for interpreting and presenting the results of various simulations, or for analyzing physical phenomena. The Eurographics Working Group on Visualization in Scientific Com puting has therefore organized a first workshop at Electricite de France (Clamart) in cooperation with ONERA (Chatillon). A wide range of pa pers were selected in order to cover most of the topics of interest for the members of the group, for this first edition, and 26 of them were presented in two days. Subsequently 18 papers were selected for this volume. 1'he presentations were organized in eight small sessions, in addition to discussions in small subgroups. The first two sessions were dedicated to the specific needs for visualization in computational sciences: the need for graphics support in large computing centres and high performance net works, needs of research and education in universities and academic cen tres, and the need for effective and efficient ways of integrating numerical computations or experimental data and graphics. Three of those papers are in Part I of this book. The third session discussed the importance and difficulties of using stan dards in visualization software, and was related to the fourth session where some reference models and distributed graphics systems were discussed. Part II has five papers from these sessions.

Selected papers from this year’s Workshops on Virtual Environments and on Visualization in Scientific Computing are included in this volume. The papers on VE discuss Virtual Environment System architecture, communication requirements, synthetic actors, crowd simulations and modeling aspects, application experience in surgery support, geographic information systems, and engineering and virtual housing systems. Contributions from the Visualization workshop are presented in four groups: volume rendering, user interfaces in scientific visualization, architecture of scientific visualization systems and flow visualization.

Lists citations with abstracts for aerospace related reports obtained from world wide sources and announces documents that have recently been entered into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Database.

Looking back at the years that have passed since the realization of the very first electronic, multi-purpose computers, one observes a tremendous growth in hardware and software performance. Today, researchers and engi neers have access to computing power and software that can solve numerical problems which are not fully understood in terms of existing mathemati cal theory. Thus, computational sciences must in many respects be viewed as experimental disciplines. As a consequence, there is a demand for high quality, flexible software that allows, and even encourages, experimentation with alternative numerical strategies and mathematical models. Extensibil ity is then a key issue; the software must provide an efficient environment for incorporation of new methods and models that will be required in fu ture problem scenarios. The development of such kind of flexible software is a challenging and expensive task. One way to achieve these goals is to in vest much work in the design and implementation of generic software tools which can be used in a wide range of application fields. In order to provide a forum where researchers could present and discuss their contributions to the described development, an International Work shop on Modern Software Tools for Scientific Computing was arranged in Oslo, Norway, September 16-18, 1996. This workshop, informally referred to as Sci Tools '96, was a collaboration between SINTEF Applied Mathe matics and the Departments of Informatics and Mathematics at the Uni versity of Oslo.