Sonification to support visualization tasks

Computational visualization systems and techniques have improved information gathering activities and changed the ways in which science is studied. However, the complexity of the data handled by such systems has suggested the need for alternative representation and display techniques. Auditory display has been considered to be a real possibility in this area, in a field known as sonification. The paper describes the approach, implementation and results of a prototype for a sonification system to support graphical techniques in visualization applications. Results have shown that there are many possibilities for the inclusion of sound tools in visualization systems, in ways that may ease data interpretation and improve performance in analysis tasks.