Visualization Viewpoints

ions. As such, it addressed many problems and issues facing the discipline. While I believe Hibbard’s list to be an important beginning—and while I also note that some of the items in Sutherland’s original 1966 list are still unsolved and reappear on my list—I also believe it is important to refresh these lists regularly and to add new viewpoints with regard to visualization research problems and issues. In this way, we may motivate visualization researchers to think either about new problems or about persistent problems in a new way. Top scientific visualization research problems I have been assembling my own list of the most important issues facing researchers in scientific visualization, a list that represents my personal view of the field. In the last year or so, I have been presenting my ideas and updating my list based partly on the feedback I’ve obtained (see Figure 1). My strongest concern in creating and presenting this list is not to impose my own ideas on the field but rather to start a discussion about important research issues within scientific visualization. I recently participated in an IEEE Visualization 2004 panel proposal called, “Can We Determine the Top Unresolved Problems of Visualization?” and note views among the authors varied widely. This is as it should be. The most important thing is that researchers formulate positions and that their positions be disseminated and discussed. To be clear, the items on my list are not all “problems”; some are possible “directions” Chris Johnson