Visualizing Data
by chromaticNetwork Newsletter for 02/11/2003
Dear Readers,
Having just returned from the O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference, data visualization is top of mind. The challenge to take mountains of information, such as data compiled as part of the human genome project, and present it in easy-to-digest chunks (for presentations and so forth) is a daunting task indeed.
People who specialize in these types of efforts, bioinformaticians among them, often work with sophisticated visualization applications. But what about the working scientist or educator who also wants to visually portray information, but who doesn't have access to high-end equipment and software?
Back in June 2001, Drew McCormack, a scientist by trade, read the article, "3-D Data Visualization on Mac OS X" where Michael Norton showed how easy it could be to turn your garden variety iBook running Mac OS X into a powerful scientific ally. The article opened Drew's eyes to the fact that he could create his own software to meet his visualization needs.
The problem was that Norton's article focused on using VTK's libraries, and McCormack is a Cocoa enthusiast. Soon he began to wonder if it were possible to get the best of both worlds: Cocoa's great application-building frameworks, and VTK's equally impressive visualization libraries.
In short, the answer is yes. Drew McCormack's article, "Developing Visualization Applications with Cocoa and VTK" shows you step by step how to create powerful visualization programs that you can run on any Mac OS X computer. It's a great read.
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One final thought. Putting powerful computing into the hands of working scientists leads to exciting explanations of the world in which we live, and in ways that we can understand.
I hope you have time to stop by for a read.
Until next week,
chromatic
Derrick Story
O'Reilly Network Technical Editor
chromatic@oreilly.com
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