Good morning, and welcome to the panel session o n effective software systems for scientific data visualization . Before we get started, we want to make just a couple o f announcements . The entire proceedings will be taped . Therefore, when you come up during the interactive portion o f the session to ask questions, make sure you come to the mike s in the aisles . There should be plenty of them . And make sure that you identify yourself and your affiliation . In addition, we will have to vacate the room at 10 :30 . There is another panel session that's supposed to start a t 10 :45 . There will be a breakout room set up off to the left ; I think it's Salon D . That's it for the announcements . Despite the advancement of scientific visualization ove r the last several years, there is still significant problems i n bringing today's technology into the hands of the typica l scientist . In addition, visualization cannot stand alone . It's a critical part of the data analysis and understanding process, an d it is much more than a bunch of pretty pictu r es, and we hope t o illustrate these ideas to you . We've been involved in various aspects of buildin g visualization tools or interfaces to computer systems for non computer scientists in a variety of disciplines . We will outlin e some of the problems and solutions that we have encountered , as well as some of the unresolved issues . — TREINISH SLIDE 3 —