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Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B9

Correspondence to: George K. Knopf, Ph.D., P.Eng., Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B9. Tel: (519) 661-2111 ext. 88452; Fax: (519) 661-3020; E-mail: gknopf@engga.uwo.ca

Scientific data visualization; interactive information analysis; self-organizing feature map; spherical representations

Scientific data visualization provides scientists and engineers with a deeper insight and greater understanding about physical phenomena through the use of graphical tools. Individuals are able to identify patterns embedded in data sets using visual cues such as color and shape, rather than directly searching through a vast volume of numbers. The visualization algorithm described in this paper utilizes a spherical self-organizing feature map (SOFM) to automatically cluster and develop a well-defined topology of arbitrary data vectors, based on a pre-defined measure of similarity, and generate a three-dimensional color-coded surface model that reflects cluster variations. Implementation of this self-organizing surface geometry for data visualization applications is illustrated by examining the graphical forms created for a small synthetic test data set and a large environmental data-base. The proposed methodology provides the researcher with a new tool to encode information into shape and easily transfer the geometric model to an immersive virtual reality (IVR) environment for interactive information analysis.

Information Visualization (2002) 1, 111-119. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ivs.9500015