The Evolution of Visualization

The subject matter of this workshop is Visualization; is there anything left to do? The short<br>answer is yes, but we need to understand and review the evolution of Visualization to truly<br>answer and come to this conclusion. This paper is a brief summary of the past twenty years<br>and how we came to build Visualization Centers in the Oil & Gas industry. The term<br>Visualization replaced Virtual Reality a few years ago and now more and more of us use the<br>term Collaboration. So no matter what word you use we all know over time that someone will<br>change it and become the “buzz word” at that time. However, the important message is not<br>about how we describe these centers but how we use these centers. The ever changing<br>technologies we utilize in these centers have in fact changed the way we use the centers. This<br>will be one point that is explained in more detail though-out this paper and also why we<br>cannot be sure exactly what we need to do in the future. So as stated above, the answer to the<br>question – “is there anything left to do” is always going to be “yes’, but how we use it will<br>evolve as well.