Visualization of Natural Phenomena


I was coauthor, along with Rob Wolff, of a book entitled Visualization of Natural Phenomena on the subject of computer graphics and scientific visualization. My background in computer graphics as Director of Software Development at Digital Productions (as well as Vice President of Software for Omnibus Computer Graphics and Robert Abel and Associates), together with 10 years of experience in Computational Fluid Dynamics, allowed me to bring a lot of experience in both science and visualization to the project. The combined book and CD-ROM (the first such combination published to my knowledge) won both the "Best Nonfiction Computer Book" of 1993 from the Computer Press Association and an Honorable Mention (2nd Place) as "Best New Electronic Product of 1993" from the American Association of Publishers' Professional and Scholarly Publishing division. The book addresses both mathematical fundamentals in imaging and practical how-to issues in visualization. It is still being used to teach image processing and computer graphics visualization techniques at the undergraduate level, yet its somewhat informal style, beautiful images and digital movies, and discussion of the reciprocal influences of scientific visualization and Hollywood special effects make it of interest to a larger audience. Telos (an imprint of Springer-Verlag) published the book. We were hoping to pursue a 2nd revision, back in '97, but plans fell through and, sadly, there are currently no plans to reissue the book. Meanwhile, Telos appears to have closed up shop entirely (their link now takes you to Spring-Verlag), but here is the original (currently broken) link to the book at Telos.