The mission of the Visualization group is the development of methods, techniques and tools that enable people to obtain insight in data via interactive computer graphics. Data Visualization exploits the unique capabilities of the human visual system to detect patterns and trends in imagery. The central research question is how data should be presented such that this process is most efficient and effective. Within the large field of Visualization we currently specialize in the following areas:
(a)     Information Visualization. We study how large amounts of abstract data, such as trees and networks, can be visualized. Typical use cases are the visualization of the contents of a computer hard disk and the visualization of the structure of a large software system.
(b)     3D interaction and virtual reality. Visualization requires often interaction with 3D data and objects for interrogation and navigation. In cooperation with CWI we study how affordable desktop Virtual Reality systems (hard- and software) can be designed to simplify these tasks.
(c)     Scientific Visualization. Scientific visualization concerns data from simulations and measurements, defined over geometric spaces. Within this area we study the visualization of fluid flow and architectures for flexible visualization.

Our approach is characterized by the following aspects:
(a)     Application of know-how from 3D computer graphics and geometric modeling;
(b)     Experimental approach: fast prototyping, close cooperation with end users, validation in practice;
(c)     Scalability of methods is a key issue.