Organizers: Torsten Möller (Simon Fraser University), Bernd Hamann (University of California, Davis), Robert Russell (Simon Fraser University).
In the last 15 years the profound impact of scientific computing upon virtually every area of science and engineering has been well established. The increasing complexity of the underlying mathematical models has also highlighted the critical role to be played by Scientific Visualization. It therefore comes as no surprise that Scientific Visualization is one of the most active and exciting areas of Mathematics and Computing Science, and indeed one which is only beginning to mature.
The importance of more rigorous mathematical approaches is becoming self apparent. At the last few Siggraph and Visualization conferences (the main conferences in the fields of graphics and visualization), an increasing number of mathematically oriented tutorials have been offered and received an enthusiastic reception. Examples are tutorials on "Multiresolution Techniques for Surfaces and Volumes" (Visualization 2001), "From Transfer Functions to Level Sets: Advanced Topics in Volume Image Processing" (Visualization 2001), "Level Set and PDE Methods for Computer Graphics" (Siggraph 2002), "A Practical Guide to Global Illumination Using Photon Mapping" (Siggraph 2002), "Mathematical Optimization in Graphics and Vision" (Siggraph 2002), "An Introduction to the Kalman Filter" (Siggraph 2001), "Geometric Signal Processing on Large Polygonal Meshes" (Siggraph 2001), "Using Tensor Diagrams to Represent and Solve Geometric Problems" (Siggraph 2001).
A primarly objective of the workshop is to gather together the main researchers in the mathematical areas relevant to the recent advances in order to discuss the research challenges facing this field in the next several years. The workshop shall cover five main thrusts: