Model Centred Approach to Scientific Visualization

by

Bahari Belaton1 and Ken Brodlie2

1School of Computer Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia 11800 Penang, Malaysia
2School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
{bahari@cs.usm.my, kwb@comp.leeds.ac.uk}

Abstract

One of the crucial requirements for a Scientific Visualization system is to produce reliable and
accurate results. There are many possible sources of errors that could jeopardise these efforts,
such as measurement or simulation errors in the pre-analysis stage, or errors generated in the
visualization process itself.  Our focus here is to control errors introduced during the
visualization processes. To this end we propose a conceptual model for visualization known as
the Model Centred Approach (MCA). This new paradigm separates the modelling and viewing
processes in visualization, and this provides the opportunity to consistently utilise a single
modelling function throughout the visualization process. Results show that consistent
visualizations are produced by our approach when compared to conventional methods.