Visualization in Materials Research: Rendering Strategies of Large Data Sets

This chapter explores the use of visualization techniques to extract information from large and/or diverse data sets. The field of scientific and information visualization is vast and the literature ranges from the fields of computer science and image processing to applications in fields as diverse as biomedical imaging and astronomy. We focus our discussion on one aspect of visualization, namely the methodology of representing or rendering data for materials science applications. We emphasize the importance of the development of visualization tools that enable the researcher to interact with the data in real time. We will couch our discussion primarily in terms of two examples. One example will present visualization schemes to extract meaningful chemistry–property relationships from large combinatorial experimental data. The other example will be based on three-dimensional atomistic imaging and simulation to demonstrate how one can interactively query complex visualization schemes to extract useful microstructural information. In both cases, the value of visualization methods is highlighted by the fact that it uncovers information that otherwise would have been very difficult to detect.