Visualization research aims to provide insight into large, complicated
data sets and the phenomena behind them. While there are di?erent
methods of reaching this goal, topological methods stand out for their
solid mathem- ical foundation, which guides the algorithmic analysis and
its presentation. Topology-based methods in visualization have been
around since the beg- ning of visualization as a scienti?c discipline,
but they initially played only a minor role. In recent years, interest
in topology-basedvisualization has grown andsigni?cantinnovationhasledto
newconceptsandsuccessfulapplications. The latest trends adapt basic
topological concepts to precisely express user interests in topological
properties of the data. This book is the outcome of the second workshop
on Topological Methods in Visualization, which was held March 4-6, 2007
in Kloster Nimbschen near Leipzig,
Germany.Theworkshopbroughttogethermorethan40international researchers to
present and discuss the state of the art and new trends in the ?eld of
topology-based visualization. Two inspiring invited talks by George
Haller, MIT, and Nelson Max, LLNL, were accompanied by 14 presentations
by participants and two panel discussions on current and future trends
in visualization research. This book contains thirteen research papers
that have been peer-reviewed in a two-stage review process. In the ?rst
phase, submitted papers where peer-reviewed by the international program
committee. After the workshop accepted papers went through a revision
and a second review process taking into account comments from the ?rst
round and discussions at the workshop.
Abouthalfthepapersconcerntopology-basedanalysisandvisualizationof
?uid?owsimulations;twopapersconcernmoregeneraltopologicalalgorithms,
while the remaining papers discuss topology-based visualization methods
in application areas like biology, medical imaging and electromagnetism.
